This paper proposes the design and application of a head mounted display (HMD) immersive virtual reality system to improve and train the emotional and social skills of students with autism spectrum disorders. We selected two groups of 7 high functioning ASD children each, ages between 8 and 15, and similar educational capabilities. On the first…

In an age of mobile technologies, digital animation creation can be an important tool for teaching adolescents how to communicate emotions multimodally. This article draws on appraisal theory and original research to illustrate the power of digital animation for multimodal literacy learning. Students from a culturally diverse cohort were taught…

"Hall of Heroes," a digital game, was used to compare social and emotional skills of 63 adolescent female students matched for age across Malaysia, South Africa, and the United States. Participants were assessed on six social and emotional competencies during game play, namely impulse control, cooperation, communication, social…

This article provides a framework and description of pedagogies that may be used in teacher preparation across a range of settings from college classrooms to P-12 settings to support teacher candidates as they learn to use high-leverage practices (HLPs). These "pedagogies of enactment" must include a continuum of opportunities to use…

Affect detection from open-ended virtual improvisational contexts is a challenging task. To achieve this research goal, the authors developed an intelligent agent which was able to engage in virtual improvisation and perform sentence-level affect detection from user inputs. This affect detection development was efficient for the improvisational…

Links among concurrent and longitudinal changes in pubertal development and empathic ability from ages 10 to 13 and neural responses while witnessing peer rejection at age 13 were examined in 16 participants. More advanced pubertal development at age 13, and greater longitudinal increases in pubertal development, related to increased activity in…

This study investigated the potential of using a computer-simulated animal in a handheld virtual pet videogame to improve children's empathy and humane attitudes. Also investigated was whether sex differences existed in children's development of empathy and humane attitudes resulting from play, as well as their feelings for a virtual pet. The…

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) is a lifelong condition that significantly affects the individual's learning, development, behavior, family, and quality of life. Diagnosing children with this condition and providing effective supports is challenging for professionals because little intervention research has been performed with the…