Skip to content
Show Menu

Innovative ways to use technology to support parent-child interaction

This is a recording from the PEDAL Conference 2024 which took place on 11 September 2024. This year's theme was "Innovative ways to bridge the gap between evidence and action for babies and children".

This presentation by Rob Hughes from Tandem formed the first half of the workshop: Innovative ways to use technology to support parent-child interaction.

In this section of the workshop, Rob talks about Tandem, a ground-breaking app which uses AI to support active engagement between parents and children. Tandem enables children to create their own interactive stories and to explore them with their parent or caregiver

In the second half of the workshop, PEDAL’s Eloise Stevens and Nesta‘s Lauren Liotti and Zhen Rao talk about PEDAL’s Playtime with Books programme, which uses an online platform and video feedback to support book sharing between parents and young children.

Eloise is a Research Associate and a Child Therapist. Her current research interest lies in the development and testing of early years parenting programmes for both virtual delivery, and for different types of caregivers. In addition to her work on Playtime with Books, Eloise is also currently examining the effectiveness of a video-feedback parenting programme (VIPP) in increasing caregiver sensitivity with different populations.

Lauren is currently a Mission Manager on Nesta’s A Fairer Start mission. She works on a number of parenting support projects across the mission including Playtime with Books. Previously, Lauren worked at an innovation consultancy leading the agency’s social impact work and her background is in international development.

Zhen joined Nesta’s A Fairer Start team in 2022 as Senior Researcher. She has been working on projects that aim to support parenting and home learning environment, and children’s developmental outcomes. Zhen’s work has involved collaborating with various stakeholders, including academics, local authorities, charity organisations, and policy makers.