Robot Assisted Playing for Severe Physically Handicapped Children

The importance of playing for the cerebral development of children is well-known since many years. This paper addresses the central role of robotics and automation for making toys available to children with severe physical handicaps in order to provide this user group with comparable possibilities to share these experiences. A qualitative study has been carried out in order to find out how children with physical handicaps play in comparison with normal children. First results of this study are given in this paper. Based on the results of this study a dedicated robot system which supports children with the above mentioned handicaps for interaction with standard toys is being realized by ARC Seibersdorf research and is described in this article. First results from user trials are given and future development is outlined.