MyVirtualChild,
Title overview
For courses in Child Development.
Foster deep understanding of developmental concepts
MyVirtualChild is an engaging simulation that immerses students in raising a child from the prenatal period through age 18. Just like in the real world, students’ parenting decisions and life choices combine with environmental and genetic factors to shape the development of the virtual child. By immersing students in a customizable virtual world, MyVirtualChild shows how developmental concepts play out over the course of childhood. Version 3.0 reflects issues today’s parents deal with, including social media use, bullying and more.
MyVirtualChild is included within Revel® Child Development products at no additional cost to students. It is also available for standalone adoption. Visit our MyVirtuals page to learn more.
Hallmark features
- Each student creates their virtual child, including customizing a unique avatar. This process helps make the simulation personally relevant and deeply resonant.
- A rich virtual community reflects real life. For example, the virtual child’s sibling may be neurotypical, or on the autism or learning disability spectrum. Family members, friends and neighbors can vary based on socioeconomic status, as well as cultural and ethnic background.
- Authentic, sophisticated feedback from virtual pediatricians, teachers and psychologists helps students see how their decisions affect their child’s development over time.
New and updated features
- Version 3.0 includes better reflects contemporary life through events such as drills for school shootings, instances of cyberbullying and the return of a COVID variant that is more worrisome for children.
- Several new items update the child’s exposure to social and other media, ranging from toddler programs on tablets to social media in adolescence. Examples of new content include the decision to give the virtual child a smartphone and managing the virtual child’s screen time.
- Version 3.0 reflects the diversity of today’s world.
- While no specific races or ethnicities are mentioned, the virtual child sometimes meets a lower-income child or a child whose parents are in the military. All virtual children befriend an immigrant child (from 1 of 5 specific countries of origin), and the parent and child visit the family for dinner.
- As reflected in who they decide to date, the virtual child is heterosexual, but has friends who are gay, lesbian or bisexual in adolescence.
- Additional updated content includes a greater presence of the virtual child’s sibling; more control over whether the virtual child participates in music and sports activities; and more realistic depictions of family dynamics and responsibilities such as a parent working remotely or a grandparent serving as the primary source of daycare.
Author bios
About our authors
Frank Manis is Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Southern California where he has taught (and continues to teach part-time), both undergraduate and graduate courses in developmental psychology and literacy development since 1981. He received his B.A. from Pomona College in 1975 and Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1981. He is the author of The Dynamic Child, which utilizes a “learn-by-doing” approach combining a compelling, original narrative with his best-selling MyVirtualChild simulation. He has published about 70 articles and book chapters on child development, reading disabilities, development of literacy in both the primary and secondary language, and cognitive functioning in special populations of children. Much of this work was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. The major focus of his research has been on the identification of cognitive processes underlying differences in reading skills among children with reading disabilities.
Frank reviews for several journals in the field, including Scientific Studies of Reading, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology and Developmental Psychology, and was editor of Scientific Studies of Reading for 6 years. He is also the co-author of MyVirtualChild and MyVirtualLife (with Julie Taylor-Massey), interactive websites for simulating the process of child, adolescent and adult development. Frank was a member of the University of Southern California’s Center for Excellence in Teaching from 2006 to 2009, was a Dornsife Distinguished Faculty Fellow from 2011 to 2013, and received teaching, research and service awards at his university in 2004 and 2012.