Introduction:

Therapeutic toy is a recognized care technology for nursing professionals. However, there is low adoption of this technology in hospitals for several reasons, including the scarce approach to the subject during academic training.

Objective:

To analyze the experience of undergraduate nursing students regarding the learning and applications of the therapeutic toy care technology.

Methods:

Descriptive study with qualitative data analysis, following the steps of content analysis. Nineteen individual semi-structured interviews were conducted online with undergraduate nursing students from 5th to the 8th semester in a private institution in the city of São Paulo. The data were analyzed considering Ausubel's meaningful learning theory and represented by thematic categories.

Results:

The ages of the students ranged from 20 to 41 years. The data analyzed were grouped into two major thematic categories, each accompanied by a subcategory: “Therapeutic toy in pediatric care: students' impressions and feelings” and “Meaningful and integrative learning for differentiated care of children during hospitalization”.

Conclusion:

The participating students recognized the contributions and skills developed during the academic training process, emphasizing empathy, development of bonds and trust, humanization, and the facilitating potential of the therapeutic toy in communicating and understanding the individualities of children.