Mathematical Thinking and Learning Through Robotics Play for Children With Critical Illness: The Case of Amelia

A 14-year-old child with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia participated in 52 weeks of robotics task-based interviews. We present 3 of her tasks from Weeks 1, 20, and 46 along with an overview of the complete 52 weeks. We compare the data from the tasks to Brousseau's (1997) Theory of Didactical Situations of Mathematics to answer our research questions: Can robotics play support the devolution of a fundamental situation to an adidactic situation of mathematics for children who are critically ill? When children with critical illness engage in robotics play, what are the key features of the robotics phenomenon that support devolution to an adidactic situation? We found evidence of the robotics supporting the devolution of a fundamental situation to an adidactic situation of mathematics in each robotics task and evidence of 4 key features (thick authenticity, feedback enabling autonomy, connectivity, and competence) of robotics play that support this devolution.