Why Focus on Kids?

When a child is admitted to the hospital, a child’s personal agency is taken away, and social and educational development is put on hold. Child Life Specialists are an integral part of a Pediatric Hospital, who work to help children understand the medical procedures, regain a sense of personal agency, provide educational activities, and aid in reduction of stress for both the patient and family. Lumos is a part of this relationship between the child and her/his hospital environment and staff. The responsive system could become a game they can play to engage with hospital staff, family, and to create a personalized space that can feel comforting to the child. An element of Lumos’s speculative development could help Lumos learn to recognize a particular child’s patterns, needs, and likes, and can become a sort of “call and response” system that is integrated into the larger Patient-Centered Design philosophy of the pediatric hospital care system.