Exploring inter-child behavioral relativity in a shared social environment: a field study in a kindergarten

A kindergarten is an interesting community of young children. The children continuously share their interactions and experiences, and grow along similar developmental stages. In this setting, studying relative differences among them can be an interesting approach to investigating how to help their individual and social development. In this study, we present our intuition on inter-child behavioral relativity and apply it to a real kindergarten environment. We conduct a close user study necessitating the monitoring of the children's behavior. Then, utilizing wearable sensor technologies, we perform a field study to explore various interesting aspects of behavioral relativity in an automatic and quantitative fashion. We consulted the kindergarten teachers with our results obtained from our field study in order to validate the practical benefits in the kindergarten environment. We further discuss the potential, limitations, and opportunities of our approach.

[1]  Gregory D. Abowd,et al.  KidCam: Toward an Effective Technology for the Capture of Children's Moments of Interest , 2009, Pervasive.

[2]  C. E. Clauser,et al.  Weight, volume, and center of mass of segments of the human body , 1969 .

[3]  Miodrag Potkonjak,et al.  Smart kindergarten: sensor-based wireless networks for smart developmental problem-solving environments , 2001, MobiCom '01.

[4]  G. Ziegelberger,et al.  International commission on non-ionizing radiation protection. , 2006, Progress in biophysics and molecular biology.

[5]  Gregory D. Abowd,et al.  Pervasive Computing and Autism: Assisting Caregivers of Children with Special Needs , 2007, IEEE Pervasive Computing.

[6]  Alex Pentland,et al.  Sensing and modeling human networks using the sociometer , 2003, Seventh IEEE International Symposium on Wearable Computers, 2003. Proceedings..

[7]  A. Okely,et al.  Methodological considerations in using accelerometers to assess habitual physical activity in children aged 0-5 years. , 2009, Journal of science and medicine in sport.

[8]  James A. Landay,et al.  The Mobile Sensing Platform: An Embedded Activity Recognition System , 2008, IEEE Pervasive Computing.

[9]  Sara E. Rimm-Kaufman,et al.  THE ROLE OF SOCIAL COMPETENCE IN PREDICTING GIFTED ENROLLMENT , 2008 .

[10]  Gregory D. Abowd,et al.  Baby steps: evaluation of a system to support record-keeping for parents of young children , 2009, CHI.

[11]  Antti Oulasvirta,et al.  Mobile media in the social fabric of a kindergarten , 2009, CHI.

[12]  Jane Yung-jen Hsu,et al.  Playful Tray: Adopting Ubicomp and Persuasive Techniques into Play-Based Occupational Therapy for Reducing Poor Eating Behavior in Young Children , 2007, UbiComp.

[13]  Gregory D. Abowd,et al.  Designing toys with automatic play characterization for supporting the assessment of a child's development , 2008, IDC.

[14]  Mark De Ste Croix,et al.  Physical activity patterns of kindergarten children in comparison to teenagers and young adults. , 2007, European journal of public health.

[15]  K. Dodge,et al.  Behavioral antecedents of peer social status. , 1983 .

[16]  Gerhard Tröster,et al.  Wearable therapist: sensing garments for supporting children improve posture , 2009, UbiComp.

[17]  M. Putallaz,et al.  Predicting children's sociometric status from their behavior. , 1983 .

[18]  R. Nickel,et al.  Early Detection of Developmental Problems: Strategies for Monitoring Young Children in the Practice Setting , 1996, Journal of developmental and behavioral pediatrics : JDBP.

[19]  Pei-Yu Chi,et al.  Playful toothbrush: ubicomp technology for teaching tooth brushing to kindergarten children , 2008, CHI.

[20]  Gregory D. Abowd,et al.  CareLog: a selective archiving tool for behavior management in schools , 2008, CHI.

[21]  Nathan G. Freier,et al.  Children attribute moral standing to a personified agent , 2008, CHI.

[22]  A. Ahlbom.  Guidelines for limiting exposure to time-varying electric, magnetic, and electromagnetic fields (up to 300 GHz) , 1998 .

[23]  国際非電離放射線防護委員会.  ICNIRP statement on the "Guidelines for limiting exposure to time-varying electric, magnetic, and electromagnetic fields (up to 300 GHz)". , 2009, Health physics.

[24]  Gregory D. Abowd,et al.  Designing Capture Applications to Support the Education of Children with Autism , 2004, UbiComp.

[25]  Matthew S. Goodwin,et al.  Recognizing stereotypical motor movements in the laboratory and classroom: a case study with children on the autism spectrum , 2009, UbiComp.

[26]  Katie Overy,et al.  Dyslexia and music: measuring musical timing skills. , 2003, Dyslexia.

[27]  Chris Bain,et al.  Host Factors and Childhood Injury: The Influence of Hyperactivity and Aggression , 2008, Journal of developmental and behavioral pediatrics : JDBP.

[28]  Alex Pentland,et al.  Sensible Organizations: Technology and Methodology for Automatically Measuring Organizational Behavior , 2008, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Part B (Cybernetics).