Digital bibliotherapy method

Abstract

The interactive bibliotherapy method, structured using digital components and therapeutic stories, aims to support children's emotional and psychological development. Bibliotherapy uses stories to give children the skills to express and understand their feelings, and to better understand themselves and others. Children develop their coping skills by applying the solutions they see in books to their own lives (Cornett and Cornett, 1980). By reflecting on the challenges, joys, mistakes, and successes faced by story characters, children can better understand their own values and personalities. Bibliotherapy with digital storytelling makes this process more effective and accessible. The Digital Bibliotherapy Method, which will be patented, is personalized by adding visual and auditory elements such as animation, vocalization and enriched sound effects to therapeutic stories to attract children's attention and keep their interest alive. The stories are selected / prepared according to children's age, development and emotional needs and are designed in a way that children can identify with their own experiences. In this process, the story is personalized using personal information such as the child's name, age, gender and interests. In addition, the progression and ending of the story is adapted taking into account the emotional state of the child, the progress of the children is monitored through feedback mechanisms provided during and after the stories and necessary adaptations are made.

Description

[0001] DIGITAL BIBLIOTHERAPY METHOD

[0002] Technical Field

[0003] The invention relates to interactive digital bibliotherapy methods to support children's development, which are structured with various digital components and therapeutic stories. The stories are selected / prepared according to children's age, developmental and emotional needs; the basic information (name, gender, favorite toy...) is entered into the platform before the story begins to personalize the story and allow the children to find themselves in the story. These stories are supported by animations, vocalizations and enriched sound effects. The interactive sections, questions, and games provided during and after stories encourage children to actively participate in the story, increase their interest in the story, and help them experience emotional relief and catharsis.

[0004] State of the Art

[0005] There are applications that offer guided meditations and relaxation techniques to help people cope with stress, anxiety and other emotional problems. These applications, designed to support people's mental health, have limited specific content for children. Artificial intelligence-powered therapeutic chatbots help users cope with mental health issues. These tools provide users with support by offering instant feedback, but they do not focus on content specifically designed for children. The bibliotherapy, a therapy method delivered through stories, helps children better understand their emotional processes and experience emotional relief through identification, emotional catharsis, insight, and generalization. The bibliotherapy is defined as an indirect tool that helps children understand their lives and evaluate their personalities through literary works (Rozalski, Stewart, and Miller, 2010). It enables them to better understand themselves and others. Children develop their coping skills by applying the solutions they see in books to their own lives (Cornett and Cornett, 1980). In a scenario similar to the difficulties the child is experiencing, focusing on how a successful character solves problems can help the child better understand their own problems. (Sullivan and Stanng, 2003). For example, if a story addresses the challenge of a main character accepting a new sibling, children can learn how to cope with similar emotional difficulties by modeling the character's experiences. The bibliotherapy integrated with digital storytelling provides emotional support and healing to a wide audience through interactive and personalized stories tailored to children's ages and emotional needs, without the need for adult assistance.

[0006] The printed (written) bibliotherapy provides emotional and psychological support through books and stories. The bibliotherapy read from printed books requires physical books and face-to-face interaction, which can make access difficult due to geographical or physical constraints. These methods offer emotional and psychological support through books and stories under the guidance of therapists and teachers. However, such support may not always be available to children, especially in rural areas or places where access to libraries, therapists and other resources is limited. Also, children may not always find an adult close to them, which makes the process of receiving emotional support even more difficult. This is the point where the advantages of the "digital bibliotherapy method" come to the fore. The digital bibliotherapy comprises a variety of interactive elements to support children's development and allows reaching a wide audience without geographical or physical constraints. It aims to provide emotional relief (catharsis) without direct human intervention for children who have difficulty accessing therapy, have difficulty expressing themselves or have special needs, and to support their development in the digital environment. Even when children struggle to express themselves or when there is no trusted adult available, digital tools enable them to solve their problems and continue their development. The disadvantaged children can easily access therapeutic stories through digital mediums, and various accessibility options are offered to ensure that these children are included in the therapy process. Text-to-speech software, sign language interpretation, or subtitles provide various accessibility options, enabling these children to participate in the therapy process. The stories can be presented through web-based or tablet-based programs, thus providing broad access without format limitations.

[0007] The object of the invention is to provide an interactive and personalized bibliotherapy method integrated with digital storytelling to support children's development. This method aims to provide emotional relief (catharsis) without direct human intervention for children who have difficulty accessing therapy, have difficulty expressing themselves or have special needs, and to support their development in the digital environment. The uniqueness of the invention is that it consists of enriched digital components and therapeutic stories that can be personalized according to children's age, developmental and emotional needs and designed in a way that they can identify with. The invention personalizes the stories using children's personal information such as their name, age, gender, and interests. The stories comprises interactive elements that are shaped by the children's responses. During and after the stories, feedback mechanisms are used to monitor children's progress and adaptations are made when necessary.

[0008] Description of the Invention

[0009] The invention is structured with various digital components and therapeutic stories. The stories are designed according to children's age, development and emotional needs and in a way that children can identify with their own experiences. The story is personalized using personal information such as the child's name, age, gender and interests. The story's progression and ending are adjusted with the child's emotional state in mind, aiming to make it more effective and tailored to children, thereby facilitating identification.

[0010] The bibliotherapeutic stories, enriched with animations and interactive elements, make it easier to capture children's attention and establish an emotional connection. Children can interact with the characters; they can understand their emotional experiences more deeply. The digital bibliotherapy method presents characters and scenarios that reflect children's own emotional difficulties, allowing them to identify with the characters coping with similar situations. This process of identification helps children to experience emotional relief and release (catharsis).

[0011] The digital bibliotherapy consists of interactive digital therapy and bibliotherapy stories developed to address the emotional and psychological needs of children. These stories comprises various therapeutic techniques and digital interactive elements. By ensuring children's active participation, it can be personalized according to their individual needs and adjusted to suit each child's therapeutic process.

[0012] The interactive sections and games provided during and after stories encourage children to actively participate in the story, increase their interest in the story, and provide feedback by making the learning process fun. The digital bibliotherapy platform asks children questions with interactive and personalized options, enabling them to form a deeper connection with the story. The interactive elements comprise questions that are shaped by the answers children give, personalizing each child's individual experience. For example, at certain points in the story, the child is asked to describe the emotions felt by the characters: Questions such as “How do you think Meryem feels right now?” increase the child's emotional awareness. As a monitoring activity, at the end of the story, the child is given time to draw a scene, color it, or create a different ending, providing an environment for them to express their feelings.

[0013] Basic Components of the Digital Bibliotherapy Method

[0014] Story Selection and Design:

[0015] The story is designed or selected in such a way that children can identify with their own experiences. The emotional experiences of the characters should help children understand their own emotional processes.

[0016] Vocalization and Story Music:

[0017] The story is recorded in an audio format in a way to attract children's attention. Vocalizing the characters and enhancing the emotional tone with story music helps children to become more attached to the story.

[0018] Interactive Elements:

[0019] Features are added to allow children to interact with the story. Having children draw pictures with digital instructions as a monitoring activity is an effective method for children to reflect themselves and convey their thoughts on the subject. Having children choose certain emotional expressions or direct the flow of the story increases their emotional connection.

[0020] At certain points in the story, children are given the opportunity to make choices that can influence the course of the story. This encourages children's active participation and increases their sense of control. For example, by giving children choices about how the characters behave, they can directly contribute to the progression of the story. Story Personalization:

[0021] The stories are personalized using children's personal information such as name, age, gender and interests. This allows children to connect more to the story and identify with their own experiences. For example, by changing the name of the main character in the story to the child's name, the child's interest in the story can be increased.

[0022] Emotional Relief (Catharsis):

[0023] Throughout the story, the moments are created that allow children to experience emotional release.

[0024] It is achieved through scenes that show how characters deal with emotional challenges.

[0025] Gaining Insight:

[0026] At the end of the story or at critical points, the children are given the opportunity to learn from the characters' experiences and apply them to their own situations. This helps children generalize the insights from the story to their own lives.

[0027] Industrial Application of the Invention

[0028] The commercialization potential of the Digital Bibliotherapy Method is highlighted by the fact that it offers broad and customizable benefits to various user groups. The parents can use Digital Bibliotherapy to support their children's emotional and psychological development by experiencing therapeutic stories in a digital environment enriched with audio, animation and feedback mechanisms. This makes it possible for parents to follow their child's therapy process more closely and provide more informed support with immediate feedback.

[0029] For educational institutions and teachers, the digital bibliotherapy offers a wide choice of content suitable for use in and out of the classroom, for individual or group use. Teachers can use these digital stories and interactive modules to develop students' emotional and social skills. They can also monitor and evaluate students' progress, which helps to create personalized education plans.

[0030] For therapists and counselors, the digital bibliotherapy enables them to conduct more effective sessions with children by providing audio and animated stories that enrich the therapeutic process. The possibility to offer remote therapy services allows therapists to interact with children from anywhere. Furthermore, the therapists are able to monitor and analyze the emotional and psychological development of children in detail, which helps to optimize the therapy process. These versatile application and personalization capabilities suggest that the digital bibliotherapy has high commercial potential and can be commercialized as a valuable tool for parents, teachers and therapists.

[0031] These digital bibliotherapy stories, accessible via web browsers on any device (computer, tablet, smartphone), can be easily played on digital devices and are easily accessible and usable from anywhere with an Internet connection.

[0032] Literature Cornett, C. E. & Cornett, C. F. (1980). Bibliotherapy; the right book at the righttime. Bloomington. IN: Phi Delta Kappa Educational Foundation.

[0033] Rozalski, M., Stewart, A., & Miller, J. (2010). Bibliotherapy: Helping Children Cope with Life’s Challenges. Record, 47, 33.

[0034] Sullivan, A., & Strang, H. (2003). Bibliotherapy in the classroom (Electronic version). Childhood Education, 79(2), 74-80

Claims

CLAIMS1. A digital bibliotherapy method designed to support the children's development, characterized in that it comprises the steps of• preparing a story content according to the children's personal characteristics to facilitate their identification, and• obtaining personal information from users such as name, gender, interests, hair color, etc.,• wherein it comprises developmental bibliotherapeutic stories, selected / personalized according to the personal information and developmental needs, which enable them to experience catharsis, identification and insight,• wherein in order to enrich the content, it has elements that strengthen the developmental support of children with a scenario supported by bibliotherapeutic techniques by making the story more vivid and interesting by recording the stories in audio, using sound effects, and strengthening the emotional tone through story music and animations,• wherein it has interactive elements supported by monitoring activities to enable children to express their thoughts and feelings about the story,• wherein it consists of digital stories that can be used on devices such as computers, tablets, phones, televisions, etc. and presented through an application or web page.

2. The method of preparing a story content according to claim 1 , characterized in that it comprises diversification of the physical characteristics of the story characters, adaptation according to children's favorite toys, and different vocalization options for both girls and boys.

3. The customizable story method according to claim 1 , characterized in that it comprises elements presenting two different vocalization options in accordance with the gender of the child, diversifying the story characters according to the physical characteristics of the children, and allowing them to connect with their own experiences.

4. The method with the interactive elements and the monitoring activity according to claim 1 , characterized in that it comprises giving the opportunity to learn from the characters' experiences and apply them to their own situations through creative activities at the end of the story or at critical points, asking questions to identify the emotions felt by the characters at specific points in the story, and helping children generalize the insights they gain from stories to their own lives by asking questions and playing games.