Social Robots supporting the Inclusion of Unaccompanied Migrant Children: Teaching the Meaning of Culture-Related Gestures

Social robots are being used successfully as educational technologies, playing roles of tutors and therapeutic assistants. In our research, we wish to explore how social robots can be used to tutor a second language to unaccompanied minor migrants and support their integration in a new culture. These young migrants are among those most at risk in the area of child and youth welfare. In this paper, we focus on a particular aspect of a second language teaching that concerns culture-related gestures that are important for supporting the social inclusion of these children. Since gesture learning relies on the understanding of the social situation, in which interaction and repeated practice are essential, social humanoid robots seem to be an adequate interaction mean since they can provide both examples of gesture executions and explanations about the meaning and the context in which the gesture should be used. Moreover, as in other assistive domains, social robots may be used to attract the children attention and support the social operator in establishing a contact with these children that very often, after the difficulties of the journey, do not trust adults. Results of a preliminary study show the efficacy of the proposed approach in learning gestures.