Emotion regulation (ER) is crucial for preschool-aged children's healthy development, social inclusion and self-image.Despite its importance, research on ER technologies for preschool-aged children remains fragmented, often focusing on individual tools rather than interventions designed for social settings.Therefore, effective ER support must address both group and interactive aspects.This dissertation project aims to develop a novel interactive ER technology that integrates tangible and storytelling features for preschool-aged children in group-based settings, using a multi-stakeholder participatory design (PD) process.The project consists of three phases: Phase 1 identifies stakeholder needs; Phase 2 focuses on ideation, concept development, and prototyping through iterative PD sessions; and Phase 3 involves real-world testing of the high-fidelity prototype in kindergartens, followed by mixed-methods evaluation.The scientific contribution is twofold: (1) developing a tangible storytelling prototype to examine its efficacy on kindergarteners' ER, and (2) providing insights from PD with stakeholders on key ER aspects to prioritize and how they should be addressed in future interventions for young children.Integrating ER technology into daily kindergarten routines has the potential to promote sustainable, playful learning while complementing educators' practices and addressing curriculum gaps.

This work-in-progress presents ALMA, an innovative prototype for storytelling with a smart soft toy inspired by Snoezelen principles. Its objective is to improve children’s emotion regulation while facilitating children’s exploration of sensory perceptions, emotion labeling, and self-reflection. While current methods in Child-Computer Interaction (CCI) frequently emphasize individual aspects like storytelling or multisensory experiences, there is a gap in interactive storytelling incorporating soft toys that integrate multisensory and Snoezelen principles, despite the well-documented advantages of such integration. By leveraging the synergies between multisensory experiences and storytelling, ALMA seeks to foster children’s emotion regulation and, therefore a holistic development.

This paper introduces a hands-on workshop centered on participatory design (PD) approaches tailored for engaging young children, with a special focus on failures, challenges, and successes in prior experiences within the child-computer interaction (CCI) domain. Although previous efforts have highlighted the advantages of engaging young children in PD, research has overlooked their involvement as co-designers, leading to a lack of exploration and understanding of their unique perspectives and challenges in the design process. Through an interactive session and collaborative activities, this workshop will facilitate discussions surrounding challenges, successes, and lessons learned through PD with young children. By evaluating and exchanging experiences, we aim to enhance our understanding of PD and refine its methodologies for this particular population. By synthesizing the shortcomings, difficulties, and successes of past experiences, the workshop will bring together researchers and practitioners to initiate efforts toward closing this research gap. Together we will establish the groundwork for enhanced approaches and a deeper understanding of how to involve young children in PD, which will enhance future efforts in the field of CCI.

Children with visual impairments often struggle to fully participate in group activities due to limited access to visual cues. They have difficulty perceiving what is happening, when, and how to act-leading to children with and without visual impairments being frustrated with the group activity, reducing mutual interactions. To address this, we created Touchibo, a tactile storyteller robot acting in a multisensory setting, encouraging touch-based interactions. Touchibo provides an inclusive space for group interaction as touch is a highly accessible modality in a mixed-visual ability context. In a study involving 107 children (37 with visual impairments), we compared Touchibo to an audio-only storyteller. Results indicate that Touchibo significantly improved children's individual and group participation perception, sparking touch-based interactions and the storyteller was more likable and helpful. Our study highlights touch-based robots' potential to enrich children's social interactions by prompting interpersonal touch, particularly in mixed-visual ability settings.