Figure 1: A screenshot of the turn-taking play using the interactive soft toy Octopus X-8.The data collected by the toy, combined with the data collected by the smart glasses worn by the therapist for eye contact detection, provide an objective evaluation of the child's social interaction with the caregiver during the play activities (child's face is shown with parental consent).

This paper describes a tangible, interactive platform presented here as an early prototype, designed to evaluate the child’s social interaction with the caregiver, during play activities based on turn-taking rules. The platform is composed by 2 elements, each one providing relevant behavioural data: (a) an interactive soft toy, called Octopus X-8, able to discriminate between 2 users and to respond accordingly, by emitting rewarding sensory feedback when the game rules are observed: this toy provides data about the turn-taking interaction (e.g. users’ observance of the turn, timing of rewards, sensors activity); (b) a pair of smart glasses worn by the caregiver, which provides an AI-based evaluation of the eye contact with the child. At the end of the play session, the data from the 2 sources are merged, so as to produce an overall, objective evaluation of the social interaction between the two users. A pilot study, involving a child undergoing neuropsychological assessment, shows how collected data are coherent with the video recording of the experimental session. We then propose the platform as a potential tool to monitor the behaviour of children with neurodevelopmental disorders.

This paper presents the preliminary results where an experimental prototype, the interactive soft toy called Octopus X-8, is used with three children with neurodevelopmental disorders in play activities involving turn-taking. This competence is fundamental for regulating social interactions and it is often impaired in those types of disorders. The pilot experiment aims to investigate if X-8 can be used as an engaging toy usable to train turn-taking skills. The toy is able to distinguish between two users and can therefore produce rewarding sensory feedback, such as coloured lights and sounds, when the turn-taking rules are respected. Preliminary results seem to show that X-8 can indeed be used as a supporting tool to improve this important social competence.