Virtual Peers May Teach Autistic Children

A new study shows that autistic children may learn social skills from virtual playmates, noting that test subjects respond more positively to simulated children than normalized human children. The experimental child, androgynously named "Sam," may elicit appropriate responses from autistic children because he is programmed to engage with them patiently, or perhaps because his technological underpinnings are of interest to them. Either way, these children are learning to play by playing with computers, a style of learning that has been on the rise in recent years, but has never seemed so science-fiction-y. Doesn't he/she look like Akira?