3cisd

3C Institute

Dynamic Narrative Generation Software to Improve Social and Behavioral School Readiness Skills Needed for the Successful Transition to Grade School

DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
ID: ED-IES-13-C-0034
PI: LORRAINE TAYLOR, REBECCA SANCHEZ
TERM: 05/13 – 11/13

Although ensuring school readiness for all children has been the goal of many early childhood programs and policy efforts in recent years, estimates from teachers suggest only about half of children make a smooth transition into kindergarten. Moreover, despite policies like the National Education Goals Panel, which call for increased attention to children’s social-emotional development as a key dimension of school readiness, few tools are available to early childhood teachers for promoting social, emotional, and behavioral skills for school readiness. Through this SBIR project, we will leverage 3-C’s cutting-edge dynamic narrative generation technology to create a highly innovative and engaging product for Pre-K and kindergarten students and their teachers. The proposed technology product will engage students in personalized story generation for step-wise learning of social, emotional, and behavioral skills needed to successfully transition to grade schooling. This product will be easily integrated into the classroom environment with the ability to not only enhance students’ skills, but also document progress toward measurable goals. The proposed product will also enhance teachers’ skills for implementing the intervention through web-based professional development tools. This SBIR directly addresses IES’ invitational priority of using technology to improve students’ social skills and behaviors that support academic outcomes.

This SBIR will yield a cost-effective, time-efficient technology product to enhance school readiness with Pre-K and kindergarten students. The primary commercial application will be a software package with innovative dynamic narrative generation technology specifically tailored to enhance social, emotional, and behavioral skills for school readiness. The product will provide schools with an engaging, cost-effective, and easy to use tool to build those skills needed by students to successfully transition to grade school learning. The product will also provide unprecedented professional development tools and implementation supports paired with an easy system for tracking and documenting students’ progress towards targeted goals.

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DEB CHILDRESS, PHD

Chief of Research and Learning Content

BIOGRAPHY

Dr. Childress obtained her PhD in psychology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to coming to 3C Institute, she served as a research associate and a postdoctoral fellow in the Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill working on a longitudinal imaging study aimed at identifying the early markers of autism through behavioral and imaging methodologies. She has 19 years of autism research experience, during which she has examined the behavioral, personality, and cognitive characteristics of individuals with autism and their family members. Dr. Childress also has experience developing behavioral and parent report measurement tools, coordinating multi-site research studies, and collecting data from children and families. She has taught courses and seminars in general child development, autism, and cognitive development at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Expertise

  • autism
  • early development
  • behavioral measurement
  • integrating behavioral and biological measurement

Education

  • Postdoctoral fellowship, Carolina Institute for Developmental Disabilities (Institutional NRSA-NICHD), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • PhD, developmental psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  • BS, psychology (minor in sociology), University of Iowa

Selected Publications

  • Elison, J. T., Wolff, J. J., Heimer, D. C., Paterson, S. J., Gu, H., Hazlett, H. C., Styner, M, Gerig, G., & Piven, J. (in press). Frontolimbic neural circuitry at 6 months predicts individual differences in joint attention at 9 months. Developmental Science.
  • Wassink, T. H., Vieland, V. J., Sheffield, V. C., Bartlett, C. W., Goedken, R., Childress, D. & Piven, J. (2008). Posterior probability of linkage analysis of autism dataset identifies linkage to chromosome 16. Psychiatric Genetics,18(2),85-91.
  • Losh, M., Childress, D., Lam K. & Piven, J. (2008). Defining key features of the broad autism phenotype: A comparison across parents of multiple- and single-incidence autism families. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 147B(4):424-33.
  • Wassink, T. H., Piven, J., Vieland, V. J., Jenkins, L., Frantz R., Bartlett, C. W., Goedken, R., … Sheffield, V.C. (2005). Evaluation of the chromosome 2q37.3 gene CENTG2 as an autism susceptibility gene. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 136, 36-44.
  • Barrett, S., Beck, J., Bernier, R., Bisson, E., Braun, T., Casavant, T., Childress, D., … Vieland, V. (1999). An autosomal genomic screen for autism. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 88, 609-615. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1096-8628(19991215)88:63.0.CO;2-L
  • Piven, J., Palmer, P., Landa, R., Santangelo, S., Jacobi, D. & Childress, D. (1997). Personality and language characteristics in parents from multiple-incidence autism families. American Journal of Medical Genetics (Neuropsychiatric Genetics), 74, 398-411.
  • Piven, J., Palmer, P., Jacobi, D., Childress, D. & Arndt, S. (1997). Broader autism phenotype: Evidence from a family history study of multiple-incidence autism families. American Journal of Psychiatry, 154, 185-190.