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.

The recruitment of participants was conducted by the Santa Ana Early Learning Initiative, a nonprofit organization that has a close relationship with the school district serving local students. Participants were selected based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, which included being identified as Latinx/Hispanic and being between the ages of three and six years old. Eighteen parent-child pairs were recruited through this method, informed of the study procedures in detail by a bilingual researcher, and presented with a Study Information Sheet. All 18 parent-child pairs consented to participate in the study and were informed that they could discontinue at any time. Upon completion of the study, participants received $25 in cash and a Sesame Street picture book worth $5 as compensation for their time.