Learnimation will design, build and validate a universally-designed early math and science intervention gesture training program for pre-school through early middle school students with learning disabilities (lds), their teachers and caregivers. Existing neuroscience and disability research demonstrates the effectiveness of gesture as an intervention strategy for students with lds. This project takes advantage of widely available technologies to provide students, teachers and caregivers training and practice in these simple but powerful techniques via a web-based software environment. Student training will include both direct instruction and access of peer-mediated instruction using agents in a virtual environment. This application will expand the access of students with learning disabilities to mathematics curricula and significantly improve the capacity of mainstream teachers and their aids to provide differentiated instruction to assess students with learning disabilities in reaching their full potential in mathematics It is expected that the conduct of this Phase I project and a subsequent Phase II project will result in the development of a commercially available web-based math intervention product capable of training teachers, educators and caregivers in the use of co-speech gesture that could accompany math instruction and practice. The neuroscience and ld literature provides overwhelming evidence that such an intervention tool has the potential to be highly effective. Iterative field tests with end users and customers in school settings, the involvement of the best technical and scientific experts available, and rigorous product development management processes are planned to ensure that the resultant product is an effective one that educators and students will choose to use.
