“Rosita Reads With My Family”: Developing A Bilingual Conversational Agent to Support Parent-Child Shared Reading

Abstract

Bilingual children have unique needs for school readiness as they navigate between two languages and cultures. A supportive home language environment, where children are frequently exposed to language through conversation and reading, can positively impact their language development and prepare them for school. However, current conversational agents and e-books designed for children do not typically take into account the cultural and linguistic needs of bilingual children and do not involve parents. This project presents the development of a bilingual conversational agent and accompanying e-book, designed to support parent-child interactions and promote language development for linguistic minority children. Results from a user study indicate that the bilingual agent effectively engages children verbally and encourages parental involvement in reading processes. The study also provides design insights for creating conversational agents for bilingual children.