Children’s Interaction Ability Towards Multi-Touch Gestures

Abstract

The modern, powerful and multi-touch technology has gained attention among younger users. The devices are not only limited to entertainment purposes, but is also increasingly introduced for learning purposes at kindergartens and preschool. However, the number of studies that address the interaction of multi-touch gestures among kindergarten children are still limited. In fact, such interactions foster great learning potential in developmental skills for children. This paper specifically focuses on the priority of children’s interaction abilities towards multi-touch gestures such as rotation, zoom-in and zoom-out. This study had involved ten kindergarten children in a kindergarten located in Kajang, Selangor between ages of four to six years old. A direct observation technique was used in this study. The findings show three items from the aspects of motor and cognitive skills (such as touch input unable to reach screen sensitivity, unintentional touches and fingers touching the object inaccurately) are the interaction ability that should be prioritized. Thus, this study suggests that the development of an adaptive multi-touch gestures application should be adapted into to children’s motor and cognitive skills, besides the other aspects.