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Research

Did you know that animation is proven to strengthen learning?

Don’t take our word for it! Below is peer-reviewed research linking animation to powerful social-emotional learning.

You can purchase the WonderGrove Social Skills, based on this research, here.

Cartoons Shed Light on Autism
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Cartoons Shed Light on Autism

“Their results indicated that while autistic children cannot recognize faces as typically developing people can, they have normally functioning brain tissue in the fusiform gyrus — the area of the brain specialized for facial recognition.”

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Teaching Social Skills Using Video Modeling Interventions
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Teaching Social Skills Using Video Modeling Interventions

“Television also has the potential to teach pro-social behaviors to children. Recent research showed the striking result that television is no more prone to fostering violence than it is to fostering pro-social behavior. Forge & Phemister (1987) further suggested that watching cartoons can have the same positive effects as watching live-model pro-social programs. Among the benefits of pro-social cartoons and programs are elicitation of pro-social behaviors, altruism, nonverbal helping behaviors, and academic skills.”

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Social Skills are Critical for Those with Disabilities
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Social Skills are Critical for Those with Disabilities

“Youngsters and teenagers without disabilities learn these skills through peer interaction and social opportunities. Skills such as making and keeping friends, being a good listener, being a team player, and being assertive rather than aggressive are what contribute to future success as an adult. But for people with disabilities, most school environments provide little to no opportunity to develop these skills.”

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Toddlers’ Learning From Socially Meaningful Video Characters
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Toddlers’ Learning From Socially Meaningful Video Characters

“Indeed, toddlers learned imitation tasks better when the onscreen character was socially meaningful (their mother) rather than a stranger, suggesting that social meaningfulness is important for early learning. Such an idea is consistent with the concept of parasocial relationships, an emotional one-way attachment that develops between an audience member and a media character. Children form emotional relationships with television characters, reporting that they ‘‘really like’’ certain popular television characters such as Dora from Dora the Explorer. Additionally, using pictures of popular familiar characters, such as Elmo from Sesame Street, increased preschool-aged children’s preference for foods that were being marketed. As onscreen characters become socially meaningful to young children, they may become more likely to trust the characters, and therefore, learn the information that is being presented onscreen.”

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Teaching Social Skills Using Video Modeling Interventions
Wonder Media Wonder Media

Teaching Social Skills Using Video Modeling Interventions

“Television also has the potential to teach pro-social behaviors to children. Recent research showed the striking result that television is no more prone to fostering violence than it is to fostering pro-social behavior. Forge & Phemister (1987) further suggested that watching cartoons can have the same positive effects as watching live-model pro-social programs. Among the benefits of pro-social cartoons and programs are elicitation of pro-social behaviors, altruism, nonverbal helping behaviors, and academic skills.”

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Research on Animated Characters and Motivation
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Research on Animated Characters and Motivation

“Research conducted by Ricci et al. proposed that instruction that included game-like features enhanced student motivation, which led to greater attention to training content and greater retention. Furthermore, Druckman added that games seem to be effective in enhancing motivation and increasing student interest in subject matter.”

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Characters and Motivation
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Characters and Motivation

“Video modeling has been one of the most popular and effective approaches for teaching social skills to children with special needs. The combination of animation with video modeling is an innovative and compelling approach for teaching social skills. One of the benefits of a motivating program such as this is that enhanced student motivation is likely to result in improved skill acquisition and reduced behavior problems.”

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Spongebob is Bad for Small Children, Study Finds (Copy)
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Spongebob is Bad for Small Children, Study Finds (Copy)

“The problems were seen in a study of 60 children randomly assigned to either watch "SpongeBob," or the slower-paced PBS cartoon "Caillou" or assigned to draw pictures. Immediately after these nine-minute assignments, the kids took mental function tests; those who had watched "SpongeBob" did measurably worse than the others.”

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