This book explores how technology can foster interaction between children and their peers, teachers and other adults. It presents the Co-EnACT framework to explain how technology can support children to collaborate, so helping them to learn and engage enjoyably with the world, in both work and play. The focus is on children, rather than young people, but the principles of supporting interaction apply throughout all life stages. Chapters on classrooms and on autism explain principles behind using technology in ways that support, rather than obstruct, social interaction in diverse populations. Collaborative interaction involves both verbal and non-verbal behaviour and this book presents evidence from closely analysing children's behaviour in natural settings. Examples from cutting-edge technology illustrate principles applicable to more widely-available technology. The book will be of interest to psychologists, educators, researchers in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), particularly those designing with children in mind, and practitioners working with children who want to deepen their understanding of using technology for collaboration.

Although some young children can read aloud with apparent fluency, they fail to understand fully or remember connected discourse. Much research on reading has focused on problems at the word recognition level and less attention has been given to comprehension difficulties. The authors of this 1991 work observed that teachers usually monitored reading ability by listening to children read aloud, or by using reading tests that concentrate on word recognition skills. Thus, comprehension problems could go unnoticed. The authors provide an introduction and an overview of adult and child text comprehension. They then describe their own research on children who have a specific comprehension deficit. Such children have difficulties in making inferences from text, in using working memory to integrate information into a coherent mental model and in reflecting on their own comprehension. The authors relate these findings to educational practice and make suggestions for comprehension improvement. Psychologists and educators will welcome this presentation of fresh, thorough research on an important topic.

This book explores how technology can foster interaction between children and their peers, teachers and other adults. It presents the Co-EnACT framework to explain how technology can support children to collaborate, so helping them to learn and engage enjoyably with the world, in both work and play. The focus is on children, rather than young people, but the principles of supporting interaction apply throughout all life stages. Chapters on classrooms and on autism explain principles behind using technology in ways that support, rather than obstruct, social interaction in diverse populations. Collaborative interaction involves both verbal and non-verbal behaviour and this book presents evidence from closely analysing children's behaviour in natural settings. Examples from cutting-edge technology illustrate principles applicable to more widely-available technology. The book will be of interest to psychologists, educators, researchers in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), particularly those designing with children in mind, and practitioners working with children who want to deepen their understanding of using technology for collaboration.