SBIR-STTR Award

This project is developing an interactive, microcomputer/videodisk tool for teaching life skills to learning disabled (LD) high school students. Called the life skills system (LSS), it is an attempt to remedy secondary school curriculum deficiencies in training LD students to function independently.The LSS is based on functional context training, and thus is a distinct departure from traditional methods of computer-assisted instruction. In functional context, experiences are recreated rather than merely described. With the LSS, students have an opportunity to choose responses to realistic simulations of everyday life, and the system will present them with the logical results of their choices, while simultaneously recording and evaluating their responses for later analysis.The high pictorial quality of the videodisk, combined with the computer's capacity for tracking through the decision trees created by student responses and its ability to superimpose text and additional graphics on the video image, will allow true-to-life simulations and will encourage exploratory learning and accelerate social and personal development. The system will be designed in concert with specialists in the fields of learning disabilities, educational software systems, video media, educational systems distribution, and potential users. It will focus explicitly on the mainstreaming needs of public and private secondary educational institutions, and thus should have wide commercial applicability and acceptance.Phase I is a feasibility and developmental study leading to the creation of the LSS in Phase 11.

Thesaurus Terms:
Children, Adolescence (12 To 21 Yrs), Education, Programmed Instruction, Teaching Machines, Human Development And Aging Study Section, Psychology Abnormal, Cognition Disorders, Learning Disorders, Psychology Social, Interpersonal Relations, Child Mental Development Psychological Adaptation, Coping Behavior Human, Non-Clinical, Information Gathering Methods Evaluation-Standards, Psychological Tests, Behavior Assessment-Measurement

The LIFE SKILLS SYSTEM is a software-based educational tool that will permit learning disabled junior high school students to experience controllable, realistic life situations within a non-threatening context, and to practice handling such situations repeatedly and at their own pace. Through computerized role-play exercises, students will interact with computer-generated interactive fictions replete with simulated characters with consistent personalities and traits; faithfully-rendered physical objects and phenomena; physical and social settings relevant to the students' own lives; and lifelike depictions of the type of social situations that daily confront LD children. The System will be designed to be used easily by teachers, researchers and students alike. The research and development required to develop the System will make significant contributions to the field of microcomputer simulation theory and technique.

Thesaurus Terms:
Children, Adolescence (12 To 21 Yrs), Computer (General) Incl Computer Data Processing (General), Education, Computer Assisted Instruction, Psychology Abnormal, Cognition Disorders, Learning Disorders, Psychology Social, Interpersonal Relations, Child Mental Development, Computer Programming, Computer Simulation Computer Printing-Graphics (General), Education, Programmed Instruction, Teaching Machines, Psychological Adaptation, Coping Behavior Human, Non-Clinical