“Rosita Reads With My Family”: Developing A Bilingual Conversational Agent to Support Parent-Child Shared Reading

Abstract

The recruitment of participants was conducted by the Santa Ana Early Learning Initiative, a nonprofit organization that has a close relationship with the school district serving local students. Participants were selected based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, which included being identified as Latinx/Hispanic and being between the ages of three and six years old. Eighteen parent-child pairs were recruited through this method, informed of the study procedures in detail by a bilingual researcher, and presented with a Study Information Sheet. All 18 parent-child pairs consented to participate in the study and were informed that they could discontinue at any time. Upon completion of the study, participants received $25 in cash and a Sesame Street picture book worth $5 as compensation for their time.

Artificial intelligence enhances children’s science learning from television shows.

“…This highlights the importance of future studies to develop media resources that better leverage the linguistic assets of minoritized children. Indeed, one recent exploratory study specifically focused on designing an AI partner that can converse in both Spanish and English with children during storybook reading (Xu et al, 2023). The support in their home language provided by the AI was found to encourage engagement among children with initially limited English proficiency.…”