Social Emotional Learning with Conversational Agents

Social emotional skills are foundational competencies upon which children draw throughout their lives. This work investigates current, commercially available experiences for social learning (SEL) through conversational agents (CAs). Specifically, we reviewed 3,767 Skills in the "Kids" category of Alexa Marketplace and found 42 working with connections to SEL. We that most common scenarios these sought support were: active listening, wellbeing, conversation other people, politeness. The interaction patterns used by distilled into a taxonomy styles labeled: Delegator, Lecturer, Bulldozer, One-Track Mind. that, collectively, provide shallow lack contingent feedback. To examine gap between current offerings families' needs, also conducted 26 interviews parents probe parents' ideas about CAs supporting children's Parents see potential four concrete ways, including attuning others, cultivating curiosity, reinforcing politeness, developing awareness. Despite optimism opportunities, expressed skepticism CAs' impoverished abilities worry advancing values behavioral norms at odds own.