Embodied and Shared Self-Regulation Through Computational Thinking Among Preschoolers

Abstract

While existing research highlights a positive association between computational thinking (CT) and self-regulation (SR) skills, limited attention has been given to the embodied and social processes within CT activities that support young children’s executive functions (EFs)—key components of SR. This study investigates how preschoolers develop basic and higher-order EFs, such as focused attention, inhibitory control, causal reasoning, and problem-solving, through their engagement with a tangible programming toy in teacher-guided small groups in a university-affiliated preschool. Informed by a we-syntonicity framework that integrates Papert’s concepts of body/ego syntonicity and Schutz’s “we-relationship”, we conducted a multimodal microanalysis of video-recorded group sessions. Our analysis focuses on two sessions, the “Obstacle Challenge” and “Conditionals”, featuring four excerpts. Findings reveal that children leverage bodily knowledge and empathy toward the toy—named Rapunzel—to sustain attention, manage impulses, reason about cause-effect, and collaborate on problem-solving. Three agents shape these processes: the toy, fostering collective engagement; the teacher, scaffolding learning and emotional regulation; and the children, coordinating actions and sharing affective responses. These findings challenge traditional views of SR as an individual cognitive activity, framing it instead as an embodied, social, and situated practice. This study underscores the importance of collaborative CT activities in fostering SR during early childhood.

1. Introduction

Self-regulation (SR), encompassing the ability to manage cognitive, emotional, and behavioral processes to achieve goals, is a critical predictor of social and academic success in early childhood (Rimm-Kaufman et al., 2009; Vernon-Feagans et al., 2016). It involves both foundational executive functions (EFs)—such as working memory, focused attention, and inhibitory control—and more advanced EFs, including reasoning, problem-solving, and planning (Diamond, 2016). SR research in developmental and educational psychology has traditionally focused on individual (intrapersonal), mind-centered processes, often overlooking how bodies and social contexts shape children’s capacity to control their thinking, emotions, and behavior. Although non-verbal behaviors (gestures, eye gaze, body movements, etc.) are receiving increasing attention in the development of young children’s conceptual understandings and self-regulatory processes (Bryce & Whitebread, 2012; Goldin-Meadow, 2002), they are still commonly viewed as secondary cues that provide insight into children’s mental states, rather than as integral components of self-regulation itself (i.e., self-regulation itself could be embodied). In contrast, somatic fields, like yoga and meditation, frame embodied regulation as central to self-regulation, self-care, and wellness (Cook-Cottone, 2015), suggesting that bodily practices play a pivotal role in shaping regulatory capacities.

Building on this perspective, contemporary models emphasize that self-regulation is both social and situated. Constructs such as co-regulation and socially shared regulation highlight how peers and teachers can collaboratively monitor goals and manage activities (Hadwin et al., 2017; Perry et al., 2017). For example, Whitebread et al. (2007) observed that children more frequently exhibited regulatory behaviors when collaborating in pairs or small groups than when working solo or under teacher direction, while Winne et al. (2013) found that a shared awareness of goals fostered the joint monitoring of progress. However, this promising line of research is constrained by its limited attention to embodied processes, which may be attributed to traditional learning contexts often lacking body/ego syntonic learning tools (Papert, 1980), such as tangible programming toys.

In parallel, computational thinking (CT),defined as systematically analyzing and testing solutions through core computer science practices (Wing, 2011), is increasingly recognized as a pathway to foster young children’s interest in STEM (Bers, 2019). In early childhood education (ECE), tangible programming toys and unplugged coding activities have emerged as promising strategies for introducing CT (Chen et al., 2023) and supporting children’s development (Bers, 2018; Clements & Gullo, 1984; Yu et al., 2020). However, concerns remain that CT’s alignment with children’s foundational developmental domains—such as SR and social–emotional learning—has not been sufficiently addressed (Wang & Proctor, 2022). Specifically, while many CT initiatives focus on unplugged activities and tangible tasks (Chen et al., 2023), this emphasis on “coding” risks overlooking broader competencies relevant to young learners’ emerging SR and social–emotional skills.

Extending this discussion, Sinha et al. (2023) advocate for viewing CT as an embodied process: children’s physical interactions with robotic toys during coding tasks represent an integration of tools into their body schema, thereby challenging conventional approaches to CT education. Nevertheless, their study remains largely constrained to a cognitive perspective and a specific setup using Cubetto’s grid map, directional arrows, and code strips. Inspired by this embodiment-centric framework, the present research aims to expand the scope of the investigation to examine both the cognitive and emotional dimensions of embodied CT interactions within small-group contexts.

Although there is increasing recognition that both CT and SR involve embodied elements, particularly through the use of tangible learning tools, studies examining these connections remain relatively limited (Robertson et al., 2020). Notwithstanding this gap, several findings suggest a positive correlation between programming tasks and SR outcomes (Popat & Starkey, 2019). For instance, Arfé et al. (2020) found that children’s EFs, an important foundational element of SR, improved after coding practice on Code.org, as evidenced by longer planning times, enhanced accuracy, and fewer inhibition errors. Similarly, Di Lieto et al. (2017) documented marked gains in both robot programming skills and inhibitory control among preschoolers who used Bee-bot, while Çiftci and Bildiren (2020) observed improvements in non-verbal cognitive regulatory abilities following coding lessons. These studies collectively suggest that the active, self-directed nature of CT and SR may have mutually reinforcing benefits (Yang et al., 2022), positively influencing children’s social adjustment and academic success (Bers et al., 2022; Diamond, 2016). Yet, despite these encouraging findings, most existing work has focused on screen-based tasks and primarily relied on quantitative measures. Consequently, the field lacks deeper insights into the embodied, socially interactive processes that may drive the observed connections between CT and SR, underscoring the need for further investigation into how and why CT may enhance EFs and self-regulatory skills.

To address this gap, we adopt an embodied, socially distributed perspective on self-regulation in CT contexts, examining how opportunities to engage in SR emerge when preschoolers collaborate with a teacher’s guidance and a tangible programming toy. Adapting Papert’s (1980) concepts of body and ego syntonicity and the phenomenologist Schutz’s (1967) notion of the “we-relationship”, we use we-syntonicity (Wang et al., 2023) as a framework for analyzing these embodied, collective dynamics. Papert (1980) defined body syntonicity as the alignment between a learner’s “sense and knowledge of their own body” (p. 63) and the learning tool (e.g., a tangible programming toy) and ego syntonicity as the identification and alignment between learning tools and the learner’s “sense of self as people with intentions, goals, desires, likes, and dislikes” (p. 63). Crucially, these forms of syntonicity extend beyond the individual to encompass joint attention and shared intentionality—a process Schutz (1967) describes as the “we-relationship”. Schutz’s we-relationship emerges from joint attention and shared intentionality in face-to-face interactions (Goodwin, 2018; Zahavi, 2010). The we-relationship is a reciprocal embodied experience of togetherness resulting from a bodily co-presence and close attunement with others (Goodwin, 2018; Schutz, 1967). The group, as a collective, can form a shared understanding together—a we-syntonicity—based on ego and body syntonicity with the learning tool (e.g., a tangible programming toy). In this paper, we use this framework to demonstrate how forms of SR emerge as an embodied interactional achievement through we-syntonicity and the collective, embodied work of the group.

By applying this framework, we illustrate how self-regulatory behaviors, particularly those related to executive functions, can materialize as a shared, interactional achievement among peers and teachers. In doing so, we offer a richer account of how tangible CT activities can foster both individual and socially shared aspects of self-regulation. Our findings highlight how tangible CT experiences, when structured intentionally, can nurture foundational EFs (e.g., focused attention and inhibitory control) and higher-level EFs (e.g., reasoning and problem-solving). These insights offer practical strategies for educators and researchers, emphasizing the importance of aligning CT pedagogies with developmental priorities in ECE.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. Context and Materials

This study is part of a larger research project investigating how preschool children develop CT skills using a commercially available programming toy at a university-affiliated preschool in the United States in 2019. A total of 22 children (aged 4–5) and two teachers participated. All children were enrolled in the same preschool program and worked with Fisher-Price’s Think and Learn Code-a-pillar (hereafter, “Code-a-pillar”) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3d4zXauy6EM, accessed on 3 May 2023) in small groups once or twice a week for approximately 15 minutes per session over a 12-week period. All sessions were video recorded, creating a corpus of about 15 hours of videos. Written parental consent was obtained for all participating children, including permission to videorecord the sessions and to use video recordings for publications and conference presentations.

As shown in Figure 1, the Code-a-pillar (discontinued now) is shaped like a caterpillar but has interchangeable body segments that program the caterpillar to move and behave in multiple ways. Each body segment represents a different command (e.g., turn right, turn left, go straight, play music). In a purposefully designed introductory session, children named the Code-a-pillar ‘Rapunzel’ through a process of brainstorming and voting, decorated a house (a box) for Rapunzel, and learned rules for taking care of her. In subsequent sessions, children participated in imaginative stories about Rapunzel’s “journeys” or “adventures”, which required “helping” her navigate to desired locations in the room by programming her movements. With the teacher’s guidance, children engaged in various forms of CT activities and were encouraged to empathize with Rapunzel the caterpillar’s goals (e.g., going home, escaping a toy wasteland).

2.2. Data Analysis

To examine how children and teachers coordinated their actions—verbally, physically, and socially—we employed analytic strategies inspired by Interaction Analysis (Jordan & Henderson, 1995). This approach focuses on detailed, multimodal examinations of participants’ real-time interactions. We selected two focal activities, the “Obstacle Challenge” and the “Conditionals”, as situations that provided particularly rich examples of CT engagement and self-regulation behaviors. From each activity, two excerpts were chosen to illustrate how participants leveraged shared body/ego syntonicity with Rapunzel and each other (we-syntonicity) to enact four forms of embodied and shared self-regulation, resulting in a total of four excerpts.

In each case, we examined how participants (including Rapunzel) use multimodal resources (e.g., speech, whole body movement, gesture, gaze, etc.) to coordinate their activity to complete this challenge. In particular, we characterized and identified associated regulatory functions, including focused attention, inhibitory control, causal reasoning, and problem-solving, that were afforded by the collective, embodied activity as a group. We created detailed transcriptions of all excerpts using the following conventions: degree signs for quiet speech (°°); capitals for louder speech; question marks for rising intonation (?); colons denote elongated syllables (::); double paratheses for actions/body movements; braces for analyst comments or descriptions ({ }); and square brackets show overlapping actions or speech ( [ ). Embodied actions were further illustrated through screenshots, and co-timed speech was outlined using boxed annotations. This approach allowed us to document the intricate interplay of verbal and non-verbal communication, highlighting the embodied and collective nature of self-regulation in CT learning contexts.

2.3. Focal Activities and Participants

2.3.1. Basic Executive Functions in the “Obstacle Challenge”

As shown in Figure 2, the “Obstacle Challenge” required children to program Rapunzel to move from a designated “start” point, navigate around an obstacle, and reach “home”. This activity was selected because it presented a relatively high level of difficulty and required extended time for children to devise a solution, providing valuable opportunities to observe their focused attention and inhibitory control—two fundamental EFs. The successful route the group eventually worked out is notated with the dotted green lines, and each of the five code segments they used is marked along the way in Figure 2.

• Participants: One representative small group included Mr. Samuel (the teacher) and three children, each four years old: Cora, Seth, and Toby (all pseudonyms). Mr. Samuel had seven years of teaching experience at the preschool.
• Procedure: The group collectively planned Rapunzel’s route, discussing and rearranging command segments. They tested and revised these commands through repeated trial-and-error. This process was video recorded, and two excerpts were selected for microanalysis to illustrate how the participants leveraged shared body/ego syntonicity with Rapunzel and with each other (we-syntonicity) to enact two basic EFs—(1) focused attention and (2) inhibitory control—in the CT practice context.

2.3.2. Higher-Level Executive Functions in the “Conditionals”

As shown in Figure 3, the “Conditionals” activity asked children to consider how Rapunzel’s movement would change depending on different surfaces (e.g., carpets, blocks, or blankets). This setup provided numerous opportunities for casual reasoning (e.g., understanding why Rapunzel got stuck) and problem-solving (e.g., figuring out how to help her move forward)—both higher-level EFs—within a playful CT context.

• Participants: Another focal group comprised Mr. Samuel (teacher) and two children—Emily and Aria (pseudonyms)—who were both four years old.
• Procedure: Guided by the teacher, the children hypothesized how Rapunzel might move under different surface conditions, tested their ideas by reconfiguring the Code-a-pillar’s segments, and reflected on the outcomes. Again, these interactions were recorded in their entirety, and two specific excerpts were transcribed and analyzed to demonstrate how the participants enacted two higher EFs—(1) casual reasoning and (2) problem-solving—in the CT context.

3. Results and Analysis

This section presents four focal excerpts, with two drawn from the “Obstacle Challenge” and two from “Conditionals”. For each excerpt, we first provide context for the classroom scenario, detailing the participants and the tasks at hand. Next, we describe the key activities and interactions from an analytical perspective, emphasizing how the children physically and socially navigate self-regulatory demands. Finally, we relate these observations to the existing literature, demonstrating how these excerpts illustrate preschoolers’ embodied and situated engagement with SR in a tangible CT environment.

3.1. Basic EFs—Focused Attention Through We-Syntonicity

In Excerpt 1, the teacher (Mr. Samuel) and the children (Cora, Toby, and Seth) were working to debug and figure out the solution to their first failed run. In their first attempt, the children attached two left turns, which led Rapunzel to stop right in front of Cora’s feet.

While Cora and Toby were discussing with Mr. Samuel what Rapunzel should do to reach home (Excerpt 1, lines 2–3 and 5–12), Seth was playing with a spare, unattached Code-a-pillar programming segment (line 1). The spatial-orientational pattern in Screenshot A (Excerpt 1) shows Seth outside the group, with his attention diverging from the group’s. The joint transactional space, marked in red in Screenshot A, is referred to as the “o-space” in an F-formation (Kendon, 1990) or an “ecological huddle” (Goffman, 2008). It demarks a common physical arrangement of bodies that allows for focused attention and engagement with one another. In this configuration, people often appear to huddle around an invisible circle or “o”. Inside the o-space, Mr. Samuel, Cora, and Toby’s attention—as evidenced by their gaze and body posture—was jointly focused on Rapunzel as they discussed her desired movement (straight and then turn, lines 2–3, 9–11) and her goal of going home (lines 5–8). In line 13, Mr. Samuel explicitly invited Seth to rejoin the F-formation by asking him to add the straight segment he had in his hands. Subsequently, the group adjusted their bodies/positions to integrate Toby into the o-space: Mr. Samuel placed Rapunzel in the center directly in front of Seth to reinforce his verbal invitation (line 14), Toby moved to the right to create an opening (line 15), and Seth responded by scooching into the o-space and offering the straight segment (line 16–17). As a result, the group formed a new o-space incorporating Seth, marked by the green lines in Screenshot B. In this newly formed o-space, joint attention was re-established, and all four participants worked together to redirect Rapunzel to her home (lines 18–21).

Directing and managing one’s attention is a fundamental executive function and an essential building block of self-regulation (Diamond, 2016). Without a baseline of sustained, purposeful focus, learning would not be possible. As illustrated in the excerpt above, Rapunzel acted as both the literal and figurative anchor of the children’s shared attention: by adopting her needs and goal of “going home” (ego syntonicity), the children were drawn to coordinate their focus on her movements (body syntonicity). When that collective focus momentarily broke (see Screenshot A), they worked together to repair and restore the shared “o-space” (Kendon, 1990), culminating in a more cohesive arrangement that brought everyone back into the fold (see Screenshot B). Although the teacher offered explicit guidance to manage their attention, the children themselves played an active role—embodied in Toby’s shift to create room for Seth, who in turn scooched over towards the circle—to repair the group’s joint focus on Rapunzel.

In other words, the group’s embodied attunement among the children and awareness of each other’s body/position —we-syntonicity—helped them form, maintain, and restore their shared attention. This joint synergy was deeply interwoven with their alignment to Rapunzel’s goal and movements: taking on Rapunzel’s perspective motivated them to re-orient and direct each other’s focus as needed. Such collaborative regulation is especially critical given that preschoolers’ attention spans are still developing and prone to frequent lapses (Diamond, 2016). Indeed, shortly after this excerpt, Toby momentarily wiggled away to examine the obstacle; however, through subtle embodied cues and repositioning, Mr. Stanley and the others physically guided him back into the group. The children’s quick re-formation of their shared o-space once again illustrates how we-syntonicity supports and sustains focused attention in a playful, goal-driven context.

3.2. Basic EFs—Inhibitory Control Through We-Syntonicity

After attaching a straight piece in Excerpt 1, the group attached three more segments (right, left, and right) to Rapunzel and tested if she would reach home. As intended, Rapunzel was supposed to follow these actions: go straight, turn right, turn left, and turn right. However, Rapunzel only executed the first two code segments and stopped slightly to the right of the obstacle (see Excerpt 2, Screenshot C).

As Excerpt 2 began, Mr. Samuel was surprised by Rapunzel’s premature stop (“oh, wait a minute” in line 1) but noticed the last two segments were not connected properly (indicated by his later action in line 8). Mr. Samuel light-heartedly remarked, “She forgot the other two things we told her to do” (i.e., turn left and turn right) (line 3). In response, the children used embodied displays to share their disappointment and frustration openly. Cora frowned and moved her body in a physical demonstration of “shaking off” the failed run (line 5), and Seth chewed his right index finger in his mouth (line 6). While Cora and Seth’s responses were somewhat subdued, Toby’s embodied display of disappointment was more intense—putting both hands on his forehead dramatically and opening his mouth (line 2, see Screenshot C). Noticing the group’s embodied displays of disappointment, Mr. Samuel orchestrated a collective vocalization of this embodied emotion, “uh-oh” to verbalize and label the felt tension (line 7). Toby took up the suggestion, saying “uh-oh uh-oh uh-oh” loudly while throwing his head back and waving his hands in the air (line 10, see Screenshot D) and then leaning forward with both hands on the floor facing down and kicking his feet as if running (line 11). After the physical display and using a shared word to describe the embodied display (“uh-oh”), the children quickly resumed the task with Mr. Samuel (lines 12–14).

This excerpt illustrates the group’s collective effort to regulate their emotional reactions and achieve inhibitory control in responding to Rapunzel’s premature stop at the obstacle. “Inhibitory control, as a central component of executive function, involves the ability to inhibit automatic but incorrect responses or to resist interference from distracting stimuli to reduce a non-target’s impact on ongoing information processing” (Liu et al., 2015, p. 1; Diamond, 2016; Munakata et al., 2011). Difficulties or challenges in a task can cause young children’s distress and frustration to overwhelm them, which can then lead to giving up on the task (an ineffective response). Based on their investigation of teachers’ and students’ responses when encountering programming bugs, DeLiema et al. (2023) argue that moments of failure present important opportunities to examine emotional responses. In this case, Mr. Samuel foregrounded managing emotions and inhibitory control as a group instead of immediately preceding to debug for a resolution. He appealed to children’s body/ego syntonicity with Rapunzel by offering a relatable explanation (“She forgot the other two things we told her to do” in line 3) and helped them label and vocalize their embodied feelings (“Uh-oh” like Rapunzel might have responded). Building on their shared body/ego syntonicity with Rapunzel, the collective vocalization of “uh-oh” heightened their we-syntonicity (seemingly suggesting “you are not the only one who feels this way, we all do”). While the children’s initial emotional response was intense, their strong empathy with Rapunzel’s goal of getting home without crashing into the obstacle (body/ego syntonicity) and the opportunity to express and label their responses to frustration together (we-syntonicity) allowed them to take a pause, process their shared visceral emotional reaction, and recover quickly. It is notable that this emotional regulation occurred directly in response to a tangible programming breakdown—a missed command execution by Rapunzel—rather than to an interpersonal conflict or abstract frustration. Thus, the CT task itself presented a real, embodied opportunity for developing inhibitory control, with the teacher scaffolding rather than manufacturing this challenge.

Perseverance when confronting difficulties is a challenging but critical task for young children because it enhances their ability to think effectively and act adaptively in a wide range of contexts including school (Diamond, 2016). It requires understanding, labeling, and controlling emotions and actions (i.e., inhibiting automatic but unproductive responses; Munakata et al., 2011). Excerpt 2 shows exactly how a moment of failure can be calibrated for inhibitory control and to practice perseverance. Through their body/ego syntonicity with Rapunzel as well as we-syntonicity with each other, the group effectively engaged in embodied/shared inhibitory control.

It is worth noting, in this example, the bug the group encountered was caused by the physical materials (i.e., the last two segments were loosely connected to the body) instead of a programming error (e.g., attaching a wrong code segment). Examining phenomena like this, Silvis et al. (2021) argue that concurrent physical and programming bugs present opportunities for young children to learn about the broader computational system in which they are learning to code. Troubleshooting hardware difficulties as a setback before testing code can be especially frustrating. Thus, it presents a uniquely fruitful opportunity to practice inhibitory control and perseverance.

3.3. Higher EFs—Embodied Causal Reasoning Through We-Syntonicity

In the “Conditionals” context, the teacher (Mr. Samuel) and the children (Aria and Emily) worked together to test whether and how Rapunzel could move along different surfaces. Following a failed attempt under the block condition, both Aria and Emily expressed their desire to help Rapunzel get her food. Mr. Samuel reassured them, saying they would help her get food, and then prompted the children to give it a try and predict whether it would be easy or difficult for Rapunzel to move along the blanket. Emily responded, “Maybe it’s smooth.”

As Excerpt 3 began, Mr. Samuel encouraged Rapunzel’s movement (“Go Rapunzel” in line 1) to establish a collective anticipation. Emily immediately attempted to smooth the blanket (line 2) but Rapunzel was impeded by a fold on the blanket (line 3). Mr. Samuel’s quick “Uhp!” (line 4) precedes Emily’s frustrated “Noo” and Emily’s second smoothing attempt (line 5). While Aria began to voice an idea (“MAYBE— it’s –”; line 6), Mr. Samuel suggested, “You can give her a little push, again” (line 7). Reacting to Mr. Samuel’s suggestion, Emily pushed Rapunzel and smoothed the blanket behind her (line 8); however, Rapunzel advanced only slightly before getting stuck once more (line 9). Mr. Samuel and Emily expressed uncertainty about the situation (lines 11–13).

Aria tried to articulate her observations with “she has…” (line 10) but was interrupted (lines 11-13). She then proposed a causal hypothesis regarding Rapunzel’s hindered movement, suggesting it might be due to the blanket’s fuzziness. However, she pronounced the word as “fossy”(“maybe it’s because it’s so fossy?” in line 14), which is not immediately recognized by the others. Mr. Samuel sought clarification (“Maybe it’s so what?” in line 15), prompting Aria to point directly at the blanket’s folds for emphasis (line 16-17, see Screenshot E). While Mr. Samuel tentatively repeated, “Fl– Flossy?” (line 19) to seek further clarification, Emily appeared to recognize what Aria meant (line 20) and rubbed the blanket with one hand to decipher Aria’s explanation (line 21). Aria corrected Mr. Samuel —“No, fossy” (line 22)—and crouched to rub the blanket with both hands to illustrate. Emily continued to rub the blanket, and Mr. Samuel also reached out to touch it (lines 22–24, see Screenshot F). Emily echoed “fuzzy” with a giggle (line 25), and Mr. Samuel finally grasped that they meant “fuzzy” (lines 26). Mr. Samuel then asked whether Rapunzel was able to get her food, setting the stage for the next excerpt, which focused on helping her achieve that goal.

This excerpt captures the group’s collective efforts to uncover what impedes Rapunzel in reaching her food, underscoring the potential benefits of conditional CT tasks in igniting children’s natural curiosity and advancing their causal reasoning in a collaborative manner. By sharing Rapunzel’s ultimate goal of getting food (ego syntonicity), even before the excerpt, Emily and Aria were jointly motivated to help Rapunzel move across the blanket to get food. Emily’s immediate action—physically stretching the blanket and pushing Rapunzel—implied her recognition of a causal link between smoothing the blanket and Rapunzel’s moving forward. This action aligns with Kuhn’s (2012) proposition that children’s earliest inferences about cause and effect begin with their own actions. Further, it resonates with Zaporozhets and Lukov’s (2002) view that children construct reasoning through active engagement with objects and their properties, as illustrated by Emily’s tactile exploration.

In addition, Emily’s manipulation of the blanket not only served as a practical attempt to overcome Rapunzel’s obstacle but may also have acted as an embodied cue that contributed to the unfolding collaborative sense-making process. While Mr. Samuel’s verbal prompt more directly cued Emily’s push, Emily’s ongoing adjustments to the blanket may have helped orient Aria’s attention toward the texture of the blanket. This interplay highlights how non-verbal gestures and verbal expressions can synchronize to scaffold mutual understanding, embodying what Schutz (1967) describes as a we-relationship. When Aria eventually described the blanket as “fossy”, the group’s attention shifted to collectively rubbing the blanket, testing her explanation through embodied engagement. This collaborative moment reflects emerging higher-level reasoning, as Aria tentatively proposed a causal link between the texture and Rapunzel’s immobility. Although exploratory, such attempts at generalization and causal attribution resonate with Cristofori et al.’s (2019) view of reasoning as involving abstraction and contributing to early concept formation.

Upon Mr. Samuel’s request for clarification, Emily endorsed Aria’s reasoning, reaffirming their shared goal and shared emotional investment. The trio’s next move—touching and rubbing the blanket—did more than probe the material; it allowed the children to embody Rapunzel’s experience. By experiencing how motion slows on the “fuzzy” surface, they achieved body syntonicity with the agent, using their own sensorimotor feedback to make sense of Rapunzel’s predicament. At the same time, their tightly coordinated actions and talk exemplified we-syntonicity, as they collectively reasoned through the same cause-and-effect problem space.

Aria’s embodied descriptor of “fossy” thus served as a pivot: it spurred the group to dive deeper into exploring the impediment, and positioned all participants to physically and cognitively converge around the same problem space. This engagement highlights the integral role of embodied activities in reasoning development, as suggested by Zaporozhets and Lukov (2002). It also illustrates the potential of conditional CT tasks to enhance children’s ability to reason about cause and effect, building on their natural curiosity and capacity for innovative thinking. In summary, the children’s collective efforts to aid Rapunzel go beyond mere play, embodying a rich interplay of cognitive development, social interaction, and physical engagement.

3.4. Higher EFs—Embodied Problem-Solving Through We-Syntonicity

Problem-solving is a key component in both CT and SR, involving the work required to overcome obstacles that hinder progress toward a goal (Nielsen & Minda, 2019). Drawing on a sociocognitive perspective, Zimmerman and Campillo (2003) conceptualize processes of self-regulation in problem-solving as unfolding across three cyclical phases: (1) forethought, (2) performance, and (3) self-reflection. In the forethought phase, individuals engage in (a) task analysis through goal setting and strategic planning, and (b) beliefs that motivate their efforts, such as self-efficacy, outcome expectations, intrinsic interest, and goal orientation. The performance phase involves the enactment of (a) self-control strategies (e.g., self-instruction, the use of imagery, and attention focusing to narrow distractions) and (b) self-observation processes (e.g., self-recording of performance, self-experimentation with strategies) that enable real-time monitoring and adjustment. The self-reflection phase encompasses (a) self-judgment, evaluating one’s performance against standards or goals and evaluating why one has been successful or unsuccessful in problem-solving, as well as (b) self-reactions, including affective responses about the outcome and making decisions about how to alter one’s approach that shapes future motivation and action. These phases operate cyclically, and post-outcome reflections inform subsequent forethought processes, allowing for recursive improvement.

As children work with the teacher to overcome the obstacles and challenges that Rapunzel faces, the self-regulatory processes of problem-solving that Zimmerman and Campillo describe are socially distributed across participants and their collaborative, embodied and material engagement with the scenarios they tackle as a team. In Excerpt 4, we illustrate how aspects of forethought, performance, and “self”-reflection phases are co-regulated by the group.

Forethought phase co-regulation: Collaborative task analysis. Following Excerpt 3, where the group focused on the problematic “fuzzy” texture of the blanket, in Excerpt 4, Mr. Samuel asked the children to consider how Rapunzel moves, explicitly framing her movement as either “smooth” or “bumpy” (Excerpt 4, line 1). His question initiates a forethought phase, encouraging Aria’s and Emily’s strategic planning to resolve Rapunzel’s stuckness that they had observed earlier. Aria responded with an excited “AaaHH!” (line 2) and Emily emphatically declared Rapunzel’s movement as “BUMPY” (line 4), signaling a shift in focus to a new sub-problem, Rapunzel’s bumpy movement, nested within the larger established goal of getting Rapunzel to her food. Simultaneously, Emily seemed to enact a small bounce (line 5), physically embodying Rapunzel’s bumpy motion on the blanket—an instance of body syntonicity with the toy. The children’s responses expressed enthusiasm and sustained motivation, while Mr. Samuel’s uptake (“kind of bumpy,” line 7) reinforced the framing and helped maintain joint attention on a newly identified issue for the group to focus on resolving.

Aria began rubbing the blanket (line 6) and verbalized her analysis: “bumpy and smooth, half bumpy, half smooth” (lines 13–15), illustrated by a balancing gesture (Screenshot G). Mr. Samuel revoiced her contribution and added his own tactile check of the blanket (line 17), and Emily also joined in to rub the blanket (line 18). Building on this shared exploration, Aria elaborated on her reasoning by articulating a new causal mechanism about how the blanket’s surface resulted in Rapunzel’s bumpy movement: “because some parts are up and down, some parts aren’t up and down” (lines 19–22) and she grabs the folds of the blanket to illustrate.

Mr. Samuel then posed a new question, supporting the group to move beyond identifying the problem and towards strategic planning and evaluating solution strategies: “Do you think there’s a way we can fix this surface to make it smooth, (would it) get to her food?” (lines 25, 28). This question served three important functions. First, it seems to reconnect the sub-problem of Rapunzel’s bumpy movement to the overarching goal of getting her to the food. Second, it introduced the possibility of modifying the blanket itself as part of the solution, thereby validating the children’s earlier identification of its dual (bumpy and smooth) states. Third, it oriented the group toward a new task—fixing the surface—which set the stage for the transition into the performance phase of co-regulated problem-solving.

Taken together, Excerpt 4 illustrates how Zimmerman and Campillo’s (2003) cyclical phases of self-regulation—forethought, performance, and self-reflection—can be meaningfully extended to a collaborative, distributed problem-solving process. Although originally theorized as individual processes of self-regulation, in this excerpt, the phases were enacted by the group through socially shared forms of co-regulation of the problem-solving process. The forethought phase of co-regulation emerged as the teacher framed the problem through strategic questions (e.g., “smooth or bumpy?” “a way we can fix this surface to make it smooth, (would it) get to her food?”) and the children responded with emphatic declarations and embodied enactments, co-constructing a task analysis of the problem at hand. The performance phase of co-regulation unfolded as strategy enactment and was coordinated through collaborative, public demonstration and exploration, with the teacher inviting the children to try folding the blanket and the children jointly monitoring its effects on making it smooth. The reflection phase of co-regulation was expressed in the group’s shared judgments of the outcomes of their solution, such as describing the resulting outcome on the surface as “a widdle bumpy,” and feelings about the strategy’s limited success (moments of frustration), as well as teacher support that sustained engagement.

Throughout this sequence, different forms of syntonicity supported the children’s engagement. Their ego syntonicity—emotional understanding of and commitment to Rapunzel’s predicament—was evident in their persistent efforts and visible frustration when attempts failed, which illustrates how closely motivation and emotional investment intersect during early regulatory problem-solving (Renninger et al., 2018). Body syntonicity surfaced when children used their own bodily movements to simulate Rapunzel’s bumpy travel across the blanket (e.g., Emily’s small bounce, line 5), enacting the agent’s perspective through embodied motion. Mr. Samuel responded by validating and revoicing the children’s contributions (Flood et al., 2022), thereby creating a shared space where their efforts in solving the problem were acknowledged, reinforced, and taken up as collective resources.

This excerpt demonstrates how phases of problem-solving regulation are both iterative and collective. Rather than individually focused acts of self-monitoring or self-evaluation, regulatory processes were distributed across participants and the embodied problem-solving task. This analysis highlights the utility of reconceptualizing “self-” processes as situated, distributed, and socially mediated in early childhood problem-solving contexts (Hadwin et al., 2017).

In this collaborative face-to-face problem-solving sequence, Emily and Aria frequently shift their attention and bodily positions in response to each other’s cues, indicating their embodied attunement to one another. Aria builds on Emily’s initial observation of Rapunzel’s movement by proposing it is “half bumpy, half smooth”, and Emily subsequently suggests “folding” the blanket to make it smooth. Aria then tested the strategy with Emily and evaluated the efforts, noting that folding “will make it a widdle bumpy.” Each child extends and builds on the other’s contributions. Such a reciprocal orientation fosters the we-relationship (Schutz, 1967), allowing the children to coordinate and problem-solve together. By dynamically engaging and adapting to one another’s presence, the participants move beyond individual acts, forging a collective, embodied process of co-regulation and co-construction that underscores the essence of a we-relationship. Even though the overarching goal of helping Rapunzel get food remained unresolved, this playful, embodied approach can still foster children’s regulated problem-solving and thereby foster their cognitive and social growth.

4. Discussion

This study aimed to explore how SR opportunities emerge in early childhood CT contexts, particularly within teacher-guided, small-group interactions using a tangible programming toy. While existing research has identified links between CT and self-regulation, the field lacks deeper insights into the embodied and socially interactive processes that drive these connections. To address this gap, we adopt an embodied, socially distributed perspective on self-regulation in CT contexts, examining how opportunities to engage in SR emerge when preschoolers collaborate with a teacher’s guidance and a tangible programming toy.

Our close examination demonstrates that preschoolers leverage their sense/knowledge of their own body/self and attunement with Rapunzel and with each other to engage in rich self-regulatory actions through CT practices with a tangible programming toy in a teacher-guided small group. In this context, the self-regulation preschoolers enacted is embodied in nature: (1) they took up Rapunzel’s goal (going home) and used Rapunzel’s physical body to anchor and sustain their attention and action (focused attention); (2) they empathized with Rapunzel when she unexpectedly stopped at the obstacle and managed their embodied emotional response to hold back the impulse of giving up and persevered (inhibitory control); (3) their shared empathetic understanding of Rapunzel’s objective to obtain food drove their reasoning about the cause-and-effect relationship impacting Rapunzel’s journey (causal reasoning); and (4) facilitated through social interaction, hands-on manipulation, and we-syntonicity, they engaged deeply in the problem-solving process and were scaffolded to think more critically about the mechanism of the problem (problem-solving). These findings also highlight three key agents —the tangible toy (Code-a-pillar “Rapunzel), the teacher (Mr. Samuel), and the children—in navigating the embodied SR process, challenging the traditional view of SR as primarily an individual, cognitive phenomenon (Bryce & Whitebread, 2012). Instead, they emphasize the significance of the embodied, interactive, and contextually situated dimensions of SR in early childhood settings. Furthermore, these findings demonstrate the significance of embodied CT practices in ECE and provide insights into the mechanisms connecting CT and SR.

4.1. Key Agents in Embodied Self-Regulation

Three agents—the tangible toy (Code-a-pillar “Rapunzel), the teacher (Mr. Samuel), and the children—were pivotal in orchestrating the embodied self-regulation observed in this study.

The Code-a-pillar, personified as “Rapunzel”, anchored the children’s attention and served as the focal point for empathy, goal-directed thinking, and shared endeavors. Life-like elements invited children to project emotional states and intentions onto the toy, reinforcing both body syntonicity (aligning the child’s own physical actions with the toy’s movements) and ego syntonicity (identifying with the toy’s “desire” to reach a destination). This dual syntonicity nurtured collective engagement—we-syntonicity—and demonstrates the power of tangible, relatable tools in fostering young children’s self-regulation. Although the tasks sometimes were not strictly tied to coding (e.g., Excerpt 4), the tangible CT toy offers rich opportunities that extend beyond computational concepts, emerging through a collaborative process involving the teacher, the toy, and peers. Such findings support the view that educational robotics can function as a constructionist tool, enabling learners to integrate their knowledge and experiences to tackle authentic challenges by developing and testing possible solutions (Alimisis, 2013).

Mr. Samuel employed targeted strategies—ranging from explicit attention-redirection to subtle emotional calibration and questioning—to support the children’s regulatory skills. In Excerpt 1, the teacher explicitly directed Seth’s attention, helping to focus the group. In Excerpt 2, he skillfully calibrated the group’s emotional responses, maintaining a conducive learning environment. Excerpt 3 saw the teacher prompting causal reasoning through co-exploration with kids, and in Excerpt 4, he effectively scaffolded the problem-solving process by asking guided questions and re-voicing techniques. The teacher’s extensive experience and deep understanding of the children’s personalities and needs significantly enriched these interactions. His capacity to discern children’s emotional states and adapt instructions accordingly underscores the significance of teacher expertise in facilitating embodied self-regulation in technology-rich learning settings. This insightful approach not only facilitated the immediate learning activities but also served as a model for embedding self-regulation into everyday teaching practices, inspiring educational strategies that accommodate individual differences and foster group cohesion. Importantly, the teacher’s scaffolding was not external to the CT activities but deeply embedded within them. His prompts, emotional calibrations, and strategic questioning were carefully attuned to the affordances of the tangible programming toy and the challenges of the CT tasks. Rather than imposing self-regulation from the outside, the teacher leveraged naturally arising moments within the programming process, such as debugging errors or navigation obstacles, to support children’s embodied engagement in regulatory practices.

The children themselves also co-regulated each other’s focus, impulses, and emotional states. For instance, Toby’s strategic movements allowed Seth to re-enter the group’s circle of attention, while Aria and Emily complemented one another’s verbal and non-verbal cues. These dynamic, embodied interactions exemplify how young learners can collaboratively manage attention, negotiate emotional frustrations, and share cognitive tasks—all of which are critical components of self-regulation (Diamond, 2016).

4.2. Embodied and Socially Situated Self-Regulation

Our findings lend support to our argument that self-regulation, especially in early childhood, should be viewed and examined as both embodied as well as social/situated in nature. While some developmental psychologists regard bodily actions—such as gestures, gaze, and movement—as supplementary cues to internal mental processes (e.g., Bryce & Whitebread, 2012), our data suggest that these embodied dynamics are integral to young children’s regulatory capacities. This stance resonates with perspectives from somatic fields (Cook-Cottone, 2015), which emphasize the body’s central role in learning and development, challenging traditional cognitive models that often treat physical aspects of interaction as peripheral. Moreover, the social fabric of their interactions—the teacher’s strategic scaffolding, paired with children’s collaboration and mutual awareness—proved essential and provided a platform for the shared monitoring of goals, shared emotional attunement, and collective problem-solving efforts.

This perspective carries significant methodological implications. A logocentric analysis that is mentalistic and individualistic would not be able to capture the nuanced and complex forms of self-regulation we show here. To fully understand how children engage in these complex regulatory processes, it is essential to examine the role of the group and the body through micro-analytic techniques. These methods enable us to analyze gestures, eye gaze, body orientation, and object manipulation, uncovering subtle coordination strategies that would otherwise remain invisible in conventional, verbal-only analyses.

Practically, this view allows us to tap into children’s bodily knowledge and multimodal resources to identify more ways to support their self-regulation development in classroom settings. By embracing the interconnected roles of the body, mind, and social context, educators and practitioners can create richer, more supportive learning environments that draw on the full spectrum of children’s communicative and cognitive strengths. This understanding opens up new possibilities for fostering self-regulation in ways that are deeply attuned to the realities of how children learn and grow.

4.3. Embodied Computational Thinking in Early Childhood Education

In the introduction, we highlighted both the promise and the challenges of integrating CT into ECE. Concerns persist that CT instruction might neglect foundational developmental domains, such as SR and socio-emotional learning (Wang & Proctor, 2022). Our study helps reconcile these tensions by demonstrating how embodied CT practices can simultaneously nurture children’s problem-solving, social–emotional engagement, and self-regulatory capacities. Specifically, using a tangible programming toy—Code-a-pillar—children were not merely “learning to code”; they were physically and emotionally immersed in a communal task. By naming, decorating, and personalizing the toy as “Rapunzel”, children formed a meaningful connection that motivated them to experiment with commands, reflect on outcomes, and persist despite challenges. In this sense, the “low-floor, high-ceiling, wide-walls” philosophy often cited in CT education (Papert, 1980) gains additional depth through we-syntonicity: as children and teachers coordinate their bodies, emotions, and ideas around a shared task, they co-construct an environment where both computational and self-regulatory skills can flourish.

By foregrounding physical manipulation, imaginative narratives, and group interaction, our approach aligns with children’s natural inclinations for play and exploration, suggesting several implications for ECE practice. First, adopting low-tech, high-touch strategies—such as tangible robots or everyday manipulatives—can sustain children’s attention and foster a deeper sense of agency in CT tasks, making computational concepts more accessible. Second, the central role of the teacher in orchestrating these embodied interactions underscores the need for professional development programs that equip educators with strategies for scaffolding both CT skills and SR capacities. Third, policymakers and curriculum designers may consider flexible classroom layouts and smaller group activities, recognizing that CT-rich environments often flourish when children can move freely, collaborate at close range, and build upon each other’s embodied and social cues.

4.4. Contribution of CT Tasks to Self-Regulation

While the teacher’s scaffolding played a critical role in supporting children’s regulatory capacities, it is important to emphasize that the CT activities themselves inherently posed self-regulatory challenges. Programming Rapunzel required children to sustain focused attention across multiple steps, inhibit impulsive actions (e.g., reprogramming prematurely), reason through causal links between commands and outcomes, and iteratively adjust strategies based on tangible feedback from the toy’s behavior. These regulatory demands were embedded within the structure of the CT tasks and the material affordances of the Code-a-pillar toy, rather than being solely artifacts of teacher intervention.

The teacher’s facilitation did not replace or artificially impose regulatory challenges; instead, it amplified and stabilized the natural emergence of self-regulation through CT engagement. For example, the teacher leveraged moments of debugging failure or physical obstacles to foster children’s embodied reasoning, emotional regulation, and perseverance. Similarly, the personification of Rapunzel enhanced the children’s affective and goal-directed investment in the task, but it was ultimately the necessity to plan, sequence, test, and troubleshoot tangible commands that generated the need for regulatory practices. Thus, the observed instances of self-regulation reflect a synergistic relationship between the affordances of the embodied CT environment and the strategic pedagogical support provided. Recognizing this dynamic underscores the potential of tangible, embodied CT activities to inherently foster both cognitive and socio-emotional aspects of self-regulation in early childhood education.

4.5. Implications for CT-SR Connections

Our study also provides important new insights into the relationship between CT and SR in early childhood. Existing research shows CT to be a promising domain for supporting children’s self-regulation; however, these studies often rely on standardized assessments and overlook the social, interactional processes of CT activities and how they may provide mechanisms to support children’s collective embodied engagement in self-regulation. Our study lends support to some of the suggested mechanisms: joy and sense of belonging derived from CT activities (Robertson et al., 2020), active engagement with CT (Popat & Starkey, 2019), and characteristics of robots that help children to learn to wait and focus (Di Lieto et al., 2017). Our findings further highlight that teacher facilitation is most effective when it works in synergy with the inherent regulatory demands of CT activities. Effective scaffolding amplifies children’s engagement with tangible programming challenges, helping them navigate and reflect on the emotional and cognitive dimensions of computational problem-solving.

Our we-syntonicity framework captures all these potential connections between CT and SR and provides a useful approach to employing CT practices to support self-regulation in practice. First, designers of educational technologies should design and adopt learning tools that are body-syntonic and ego-syntonic to allow children to leverage their sense/knowledge of their body and self to engage in embodied self-regulation, e.g., tangible programming toys (Hamilton et al., 2020). Second, educators might also employ cooperative tasks and build collaborative learning environments that capitalize on group problem-solving, as this social dimension appears to amplify and distribute regulatory functions among learners. Ultimately, CT activities need not be confined to screen-based coding exercises; instead, they can encompass diverse and playful embodiments that integrate both cognitive and social–emotional domains.

4.6. Limitations and Future Directions

Several limitations warrant consideration. First, our focus on small group sessions led by an experienced teacher may not directly translate to larger classes or different teaching contexts. Mr. Samuel’s interactions with children highlighted that young children can become disengaged or struggle to grasp task requirements without consistent support. While older children might navigate the activities more independently, the younger children in our study required close oversight and customized tasks to remain engaged. Second, it remains unclear whether the CT context itself or the playful, tangible elements of the activities primarily facilitated embodied self-regulation. Play is already known to support young children’s self-regulatory capabilities (Perry et al., 2017), yet research often overlooks the physical, embodied aspects of such play (DeLiema et al., 2019). Future studies might apply the we-syntonicity lens to compare diverse play-based interventions—both with and without explicit CT components—across varied educational settings and over longer timescales. Longitudinal designs, in particular, could better capture how embodied and socially shared CT activities influence SR and related developmental outcomes over time.

5. Conclusions

This study demonstrates that embodied and socially interactive CT activities can meaningfully support the development of self-regulation skills in preschoolers. By foregrounding the roles of a tangible toy (Rapunzel), an attentive teacher (Mr. Samuel), and cooperative peer interactions among children, our findings challenge traditional, individualistic views of SR and emphasize the importance of embodied, collective dynamics. Through tasks that engage children in focusing attention, managing impulses, reasoning about cause and effect, and iteratively solving problems, we highlight how embodied CT practices can serve as a rich context for fostering both the cognitive and social–emotional growth of young children and potential mechanisms connecting CT and SR. Future work can build upon this foundation to explore a broader range of educational settings, tools, and populations, deepening our understanding of how embodied CT practices might shape early childhood learning and development.