Giok: An alien stimulates pragmatic and social skills in pre-school children

The use of technology for educational purposes is a consolidated reality, and many new tools are constantly being devised and offered for use with both normally developing children and children with special needs. Nonetheless, a detailed analysis of the processes being stimulated and of the goals being pursued is often lacking or absent. In this work we describe the design, development and preliminary testing of an integrated system which combines the use of smart devices, a physical cube, augmented reality (AR) technology, a smart TV and a software application especially designed to stimulate cognitive and social functions in pre-school children. Specifically, observed effects on interaction, cooperation and socialization are described and discussed, together with possible implications for use with children who have specific impairments in social-pragmatic skills.