Animated pedagogical agents (APAs) have the potential to provide one-on-one, just-in-time instruction, guidance or mentoring in classrooms where such individualized human interactions may be infeasible. Much current APA research focuses on a wide range of design variables tested with small samples or in laboratory settings, while overlooking…

Preschool children with autism (n=9) and their normally developing peers (n=9) were compared before and after one school year. The autistic children had narrowed the gap after treatment--making a nearly 19-point increase in intelligence quotient and an 8-point gain in language quotient. Results support the value of a language enriched early…

"Early Partners" and "Partners for Learning" is a 2-part curriculum to support parent-child interactions in the first 36 months of a premature, low birthweight child's life. Analysis showed that the rate of delivering the curriculum in the child development center and the home added significantly to the prediction of 36-month…