Young Children's Reading With Conversational Agents: The Role of Age and Language Status

• In Event: Technology as an Agent of Change in Teaching and Learning SIG Poster Session

Abstract

Conversational agents (CAs) supporting natural speech interactions potentially facilitate young children’s literacy development. Our team developed a CA that narrates a story and engages children in story-related conversations. Considering children’s age and language backgrounds as two variables, we examined the potential heterogeneity of CA-based applications. We compared 61 children’s comprehension performances in CA with dialogues group vs. without dialogues group. Results showed that dialogues helped children comprehend the story better. Moreover, children’s comprehension ability increased following the age growth with the involvement of CA. Although language backgrounds determined children’s general performance on understanding stories, dialogues were still helpful to improve comprehension ability. Our results imply further application of CAs as a dialogic reading partner to enhance children’s story comprehension.

Authors

• Xinwei Deng, University of California - Irvine

• Yongjia Song, University of California - Irvine

• Ying Xu, University of California - Irvine