Zoo U Moved to Market by Personalized Learning Games

Social and emotional learning game Zoo U, developed by 3C Institute, is being moved to market by Personalized Learning Games (PLG), a company 3C Institute CEO Dr. Melissa DeRosier established to help educators assess and improve social and emotional learning skills for students with games.

PLG has assembled an all-star team to achieve their goal of making these games available to every elementary school student in the United States:

  • Tim Huntley, Chief Executive Officer, who cofounded and grew an enterprise software company to over $10 million in revenue and a $170 million exit
  • Jessica Berlinksi, Chief Impact Officer, who was managing director at GameDesk and cofounder of If You Can
  • Melissa DeRosier, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer, who has received more than $5 million in grant funding from the Department of Education to develop a series of games for social and emotional learning
  • Jim Thomas, Chief Technology Officer, who has a doctorate in computer science focused on intelligent tutoring systems

Developed with SBIR funding from the U.S. Department of Education, Zoo U is the only research-proven online game that assesses children’s social and emotional skills and provides a targeted intervention based on that assessment, enabling the program to meet each child’s individual needs. This unique combination of features makes Zoo U more effective than one-size-fits-all social-emotional games and traditional interventions.

Players are students in a school for future zookeepers, where Principal Wild and a host of friendly animals help them learn critical social and emotional skills, including impulse control, emotion regulation, and communicating effectively.

Geared toward children ages 7-12, Zoo U offers schools an unprecedented advantage over other social skills assessments and interventions—the ability to effectively reach each individual child at his or her level with a minimal time and cost investment.

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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.