Hi-tech observation of playground social communication trajectories in children (HOPSCoTCh)

Playtime is an important aspect of everyday life for most school-aged children. As well as an opportunity for fun, the free-for-all of the playground is a challenging environment which provides opportunity for cognitive, social and physical development. Children engaging in successful playground peer interaction often demonstrate social-cognitive and communication skills at a more sophisticated level than those evident in other school contexts. On the other hand, those with developmental difficulties can struggle to navigate the social world of the playground.

Researchers in developmental psychology are therefore interested in school playgrounds as a sensitive context for learning more about social development and detecting any difficulties. Interesting open questions include whether children are less likely to be aggressive if they are in a more 'natural' playground compared to a concrete school yard, whether different groups of children play and interact differently on the playground (e.g. are girls really more sociable than boys?), and whether we can reliably detect early signs of conditions like ADHD or Asperger Syndrome just from observing play. The proposed project aims to answer some of these questions in a hi-tech way by using custom built, high-resolution GPS to measure social behaviours and interactions on the playground.

To achieve this we have assembled an interdisciplinary team including a psychologist, computer scientist, a psychiatrist and children's charity. Firstly, (after seeking ethical approval and consent) we plan to develop high-precision GPS chips and incorporate them into wearable objects which we will use to record the movements and interaction of a group of children at play in a concrete, rectangular playground. We will collect tracking data from this playground over a number of weeks.

Next, with the help of the charity, we will implement tailor-made environmental improvements to the playground, to be followed by a further 2 weeks of data collection. Alongside this we will ask parents to complete questionnaires about children's behavioural characteristics such as sociability and hyperactivity.

Subsequently, we will develop new mathematical techniques to identify different behavioural interaction patterns from the data. This should allow us to achieve our objectives to characterise the typical formation of social subgroups and identify how individual differences affect interactions in the social and physical environment. We will also examine the data from before and after the implementation of the environmental changes to see whether we can detect any changes in children's behaviour, for example increasing activity or sociability levels.

If the project is successful there will be a number of benefits. We will have important new information about children's social development which will improve our understanding of the relationships between a child's individual profile, their social group and the playground environment. This could be used to inform behavioural interventions. The method could also be developed to aid diagnosis of conditions affecting social development and in other fields where researchers would like to learn more about human social interactions.

We will also know more about whether investment in changes to the playground environment maybe a worthwhile consideration for schools and have a clearer basis for developing further research into this issue using more robust experimental study designs.

Finally, the development of hardware and software to the point where other researchers in both social and computer sciences can adopt the technique for their own studies provides opportunity for scientific and economic benefits to the UK and beyond.

Community organisations and schools: Our partner charity, Learning through Landscapes (LtL), will benefit from an objective measure of the impact of their work, which they can use in their advice to schools. The participating school will benefit immediately from the environmental intervention implemented as part of the research project. The school is in a deprived urban centre (Tower Hamlets) and the improvements will brighten up the children's surroundings and, potentially have a positive impact on socialisation and learning opportunities. The school will benefit from a detailed profile of the behavioural characteristics of their pupils and insight into how the use of the playground could be optimised. Another benefit to the participating school is a unique opportunity to engage their pupils directly with social science research. Children will improve their understanding of social science and technology, and may benefit by exposure to social science as a potential career option.

Children: Beyond the immediate benefits to the participants, in the longer term, children could benefit from improved design and perhaps even legal protection of their playground spaces via the policy impacts we hope to achieve. This could lead to improved health and wellbeing. In the medium-term, other schools could adopt the technology to inform local decisions about changes to playgrounds.

Children with neurodevelopmental disabilities such as autism or attention deficit disorder could also benefit. Improved diagnostic practices resulting from use of HOPSCoTCh data could facilitate earlier and more accurate diagnosis. This in turn is associated with better provision and educational outcomes. The findings from our study could be used to examine how playgrounds can be adjusted to promote inclusion for children with these difficulties. Finally, we foresee that this group of children could benefit from improved interventions that have been evaluated for social impact using HOPSCoTCh.

Clinicians: As suggested above, HOPSCoTCh could contribute to diagnostics for neurodevelopmental conditions which have complex and subtle presentations. This could improve the working practices for those working in paediatric neurodevelopment. Accurate data from schools is a recognised "evidence deficit" area in this field that HOPSCoTCh could potentially go some way to resolving. Further validation work would need to be carried out but we consider this could be a strong possibility within 2 years.

General public: We also expect the project to have an impact on the public perception of playtime and its importance for children's development and socialisation. This is a desirable outcome given the developmental significance of play, which is sometimes overlooked in favour of activities perceived as more obviously "educational."

National and international policymakers: In the longer term (within 1-2 years of the project end), our findings could impact on public policy for the design and allocation of spaces for outdoor play. With increasing pressure for school places, playgrounds can be under threat and further use of this technology could enable optimisation of available space. Given the increasing importance of demonstrating that policy is evidence-informed, the HOPSCoTCh project technology could provide the most robust evidence to date in this area. This will lead to more effective buildings policies for schools and ultimately benefit child well-being in educational settings both nationally and internationally.

UK economy: The technology sector and UK economy are also potential beneficiaries of this research. Our goal of developing a hardware-software suite of measures could result in a product that would be marketable in research and clinical sectors across the globe. There may be potential for a spinout company or similar within 12 months of the project end. This could attract spending and investment in the UK.