Ingraham Kimberly A, Feldner Heather A, Steele Katherine M
Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States of America.
Division of Physical Therapy, Department of Rehabilitation Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 Dec 19;19(12):e0316097. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0316097. eCollection 2024.
Developmentally appropriate access to technology can support toddlers in learning and play. While touch screens are a popular interaction modality for children under the age of three, they may not be appropriate for all children or all tasks. We know comparatively little about how toddlers interact with joystick-based technology, and more fundamental research is required to understand joystick interactions at different ages and developmental stages. We quantified how 36 nondisabled toddlers used a joystick to play a cause-and-effect game on a computer. Children demonstrated a strong preference for moving the joystick forward first, regardless of the target direction. On average, the oldest children navigated the joystick to the target 5 seconds faster than the youngest children, and were nearly twice as efficient in their joystick path. These findings inform the design of assistive algorithms for joystick-enabled computer play and developmentally appropriate technologies for toddlers.
在发育阶段适当地接触技术可以支持幼儿的学习和玩耍。虽然触摸屏是三岁以下儿童常用的交互方式，但它们可能并不适用于所有儿童或所有任务。我们对幼儿如何与基于操纵杆的技术进行交互了解相对较少，需要进行更多基础研究来理解不同年龄和发育阶段的操纵杆交互。我们对36名无残疾的幼儿如何使用操纵杆在电脑上玩因果游戏进行了量化。无论目标方向如何，孩子们都强烈倾向于先向前移动操纵杆。平均而言，年龄最大的孩子将操纵杆导航到目标的速度比年龄最小的孩子快5秒，并且他们操纵杆路径的效率几乎是年龄最小孩子的两倍。这些发现为支持使用操纵杆的电脑游戏的辅助算法设计以及适合幼儿发育阶段的技术提供了参考。
