HCC: NSF-BSF: social tabletop robots as mediating agents for parent-child understanding in autism play interactions

The National Science Foundation Division of Computing and Communication Foundations awarded the University of Tennessee $800,000 on October 1, 2026, under the Computer and Information Science and Engineering program (CFDA 47.070) to develop and test social tabletop robots as mediating agents for parent-child interaction during make-believe play with children with autism.

The project comprises three research components: participatory design with autism specialists and families to identify robot behaviors and play supports that encourage symbolic make-believe play while remaining understandable to parents; controlled laboratory studies comparing robot-mediated and non-robot make-believe play to determine how robot predictability, prompting style, and parent involvement affect children's play behaviors and parental understanding of those behaviors; and longitudinal home deployments with families in the United States and Israel to examine how repeated robot use may change parents' perceptions, family interactions, and potential transfer of gains to everyday life. The robots are designed to help make children's imaginative play more visible to their families, supporting parent-child interaction by providing a predictable and engaging play partner rather than replacing human relationships. The funding supports research intended to strengthen family connections in neurodiverse households, inform development of better home-use tools, and expand knowledge of how technology can support communication and mutual understanding.

Period of performance runs October 1, 2026, through September 30, 2030. Place of performance is Knoxville, Tennessee.

Abstract

Make-believe play helps children express feelings, ideas, and provides ways of understanding other people. For many children with autism, this kind of play may be present but hard to see, which can make IT difficult for parents to understand what their child is thinking and feeling in the moment. This project examines whether carefully designed social tabletop robots can help make children?s imaginative play more visible to their families. Rather than replacing human relationships, the robots are intended to support parent-child interaction by providing children with a predictable and engaging play partner that may help parents notice themes, emotions, and intentions expressed during play. By improving shared understanding of make-believe play between parents and children, this project could strengthen family connections, inform the development of better tools for home use, and expand knowledge of how technology can support communication and mutual understanding in neurodiverse families. This project develops and tests a human-centered framework in which a social tabletop robot helps reveal a child?s imaginative play during parent-child interaction. The research has three parts. First, participatory design with autism specialists, parents, and comparison families will identify robot behaviors and play supports that encourage symbolic make-believe play while remaining understandable to parents. Second, controlled laboratory studies will compare robot-mediated and non-robot make-believe play to determine how robot predictability, prompting style, and parent involvement affect children?s play behaviors and parents? Understanding of those behaviors. Third, longitudinal home deployments with families in the united states and israel will examine how repeated use may change parents' perceptions, family interactions, and potential transfer of gains to everyday non-robot contexts. The project will produce validated design principles for tabletop social robots, child-family interaction protocols, and coding methods. Additionally, this work will create assessment tools to study robot-supported make-believe play and technologies that support neurodiverse families. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.- subawards are not planned for this award.