Research opportunities: Embodied child–computer interaction

The child–computer-interaction community has been increasingly influenced by an interaction paradigm called embodied interaction. Embodied child–computer interaction is grounded in theories of embodied cognition that include a dynamic systems perspective on children’s development, different mechanisms for offloading cognition to the world, and inter-related theories about how movement informs learning and cognition. The last ten years have seen these perspectives on cognition rise in prevalence and acceptance in the cognitive science community. But what is embodied child–computer interaction? How does it change how we design interactive technologies for children? What are the gaps in knowledge that need to be addressed? In this paper, I provide a short introduction to embodied cognition and embodied child–computer interaction, discuss several roles that theories can play in child–computer interaction research, and identify three important groups of theories that have practical application in interaction design. Each area is explained and illustrated with recent work from the field. Opportunities for future research are broadly identified. The main contribution of the paper is the framing and identification of three opportunities for research in embodied child–computer interaction, which I hope will set the stage for future research publications in this international journal of child–computer interaction.