FROB (Family of ROBots) aims at developing a methodology and tools to exploit and test autonomous robots to support play with Children with Disabilities (CwD), physical and cognitive, overcoming individual limitations and environmental barriers that prevent autonomous play.

CwD may meet difficulties in the autonomous development of the abilities necessary to play due to their impairments and to the lack of effective toys as well as of appropriate methodologies and techniques to scaffold their play activities within inclusive contexts. This may cause deprivation not only to their cognitive development but also to their social relationships, thus preventing them fromthe full accomplishment of their right recognized both by UNCRC and UNCRPD.

In the last decades multidisciplinary research has addressed critical aspects of play with CwD: designing accessible and adaptableludic tools, developing methodologies to implement effective and inclusive play activities (as to spaces, affordances, mediators,scenarios) and policies (attitudes, norms). The NRRP (2021) also sustains the need to actively guarantee equal opportunities to persons with disabilities thus overcoming the delays that penalize them in Italy.

This research focuses on the development of a set of educational tools for educators and caregivers including: a) a Family of ROBots(FROBs), whose modularity enable to define different types of interaction and play; b) a related repertoire of inclusive play activities that ensure the direct participation of CwD, in particular with Physical Impairment (PI) and Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD).

Most of the available robotic toys and prototypes are suitable for a single type of interaction, with a poor ludic potential. The modularity of FROBs will enable different types of play (cognitive side: practice, constructive, symbolic, rule-based; social side: solitary, parallel, collaborative) and will support toy adaptation to the play situation, giving the opportunity to CwD to play together at different levels of complexity. The main challenge will be the definition of a methodology to exploit an affordable, and extremely versatile hardware/software architecture and a set of modules that could be assembled in a plug-and-play way to implement interesting autonomous objects.