The use of Transitional Wearable Companion toys to promote children's emotional intelligence: the Emotion-Lab program

Emotion-Lab is a novel educational model for the development of Emotional Intelligence in children. It is based on the use of innovative, interactive smart toys, called Transitional Wearable Companions (TWCs), originally designed to stimulate social engagement in children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), through sensory-motor play with the therapist. In this work the TWCs are used in a new, educational scenario addressed to typically developed children. In a pilot test, teachers and pedagogists used the interactive features of TWCs to set up learning activities which aim to develop and improve emotional awareness and emotional competence, fundamental skills in a child's cognitive development. In more detail the Emotion-Lab, through inclusive, social activities, aims to encourage participants to (a) become more aware of their emotional states; (b) learn to distinguish and understand the emotions of others; (c) express their own emotions appropriately; (d) experience empathic and sympathetic involvement; (e) distinguish between manifest emotional states and actual internal states. At the end of the test, children were then encouraged, through discussion, to share their intra and interpersonal experiences, with the main objective of improving mutual understanding and increasing social cohesion and, at the same time, reducing the phenomena of social discomfort, bullying, and cyberbullying.