MEDEA - Use of Cognitive Models for Enhanced E-Learning

Children with learning difficulties may have problems with written texts, even in the interactive e-learning format. Studies in Cognitive Science (see e.g. Johnson-Laird, How we reason) indicate that untrained people (especially children) tend to visualise and reason about text using Mental Models, i.e. images with special characteristics. Using NLP techniques, it is proposed to convert text into interactive visual representation of Mental Models, in order to facilitate text comprehension. This will then be tested in appropriate e-learning contexts.
The general objective is to facilitate text comprehension by children with learning difficulties by presenting it as interactive Mental Models.