Project name: An Evidence-Based Digital Toolkit to Enhance Children’s Metaphor Skills and Strengthen Practitioner Expertise

Project acronym: Meta4Kids

Principal investigator: Prof.ssa Valentina Bambini

Description: The ERC Proof of Concept project Meta4Kids will develop an innovative digital tool that integrates assessment, enhancement, and professional training to support children’s language development. In particular, the project aims to foster children’s metaphor skills, building on scientific evidence showing that metaphors play a central role in everyday communication and learning processes, yet their comprehension involves a complex and late acquisition, strongly influenced by individual, cognitive, and environmental factors. Difficulties in correctly interpreting implicit meanings can affect learning, social relationships, and—over time—the communicative skills required in professional contexts, and are even more significant in cases of neurodevelopmental and language disorders.

Meta4Kids builds on and translates the outcomes of a previous European project led by Prof. Bambini, the ERC Consolidator PROMENADE (PROcessing Metaphors: Neurochronometry, Acquisition and DEcay), transforming advanced research data and methods into a digital solution ready for large-scale testing in both clinical and educational settings. Evidence-based exercises will be developed to support children’s metaphor skills in inferring non-literal meanings, also integrating Artificial Intelligence features to enhance the tool’s scalability and accessibility.

Funding Institution: European Commission

Project starting date: 01/10/2026

Project end date: 31/03/2028

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement N. 101292675