Making playing robots for persons with disabilities

Play enables the development of skills and abilities in a way that brings satisfaction and enjoyment. Play is a right for everyone, but it is often negated to persons with disabilities both because their time is dedicated to other activities, such as therapies, and because of lack of appropriate tools and companions to play with. Robots have been proven as effective means to support development in persons with disabilities, since they provide unique opportunities and strong engagement. We present a framework to develop play situations based on robots and its application on some settings, with the aim of showing how effective, playful robots can be developed also using low-level technology at a relatively low cost. This may be a way to produce ad-hoc tools, adapted to specific situations, and, at the same time, to share experiences and ideas to foster the development of robots that can hardly reach a real market.