Elida Laski
Associate Professor Elida Laski is part of a team studying the impacts of PAL—an adaptive “smart” learning system making a big difference in young children’s math learning and receiving widespread recognition for its innovation. Pilot research demonstrates the platform effectively promotes young children’s math learning by enhancing adult-child math interactions.
A developmental psychologist specializing in early mathematical thinking and cognitive science, Laski conducts experimental studies to understand how children learn. Motivated by her experience as a kindergarten teacher and Boston Public Schools instructional coach, her work aims to translate research into strategies for improving children’s math learning. Much of her research examines how to enhance adult-child math interactions at home, by making it easier for caregivers to recognize math opportunities and children’s growing math skills through better designed learning materials, games, and storybooks.
Created by Dr. Anastasia Betts and Benjamin Ryon from Learnology, Personal Assistant for Learning (PAL) is an adaptive learning system that supports children’s math learning by connecting the adults in a child’s entire learning ecosystem—home and school—and empowering them to provide math experiences tailored especially to each child.
Whether PAL suggests counting during snack time or sorting items by size, all learnings remain grounded in real-world interactions informed by an underlying knowledge model. Based on caregiver feedback following each activity, PAL refines its model of the child’s math knowledge. By tailoring its recommendations, PAL builds caregivers’ knowledge of the scope of early math and allows children to continuously expand their math understanding.
The app’s innovative approach is making a mark. An initial pilot study conducted in collaboration with Laski and school-district partners found children of families in the Early Learning Coalition of Palm Beach County who used PAL showed substantially greater gains than those who did not. In partnership with Seven Arrows Elementary in Southern California, Laski also contributed to a second pilot study which found that the children’s learning was greatest when parents received more versus fewer nudges to engage with their children.
The platform has also earned global recognition. It was selected as one of just 21 winners of the 2026 TOOLS Competition out of over 1400 submissions, and as a finalist in the SXSW-ED Launch Startup Competition. In the next phases of the project, Laski and her collaborators aim to scale up PALs’ impact by partnering with additional school-districts and community partners.
Pilot studies conducted by Laski and her collaborators found that children who used PAL with their families show substantial math gains. In one study, they showed three times more progress in early math than those in the control group.
The ongoing success of this tool is reliant on the feedback provided to PAL from the caregiver. This quick exchange allows the tool to refine future activity prompts, adapting to the landscape of the child’s fundamental math understandings. As it adjusts dynamically to the learner with the aim of strengthening emerging skills, PAL allows children to expand their grasp of critical mathematical concepts without reaching the point of frustration.
Each and every PAL participant improved over the course of the study, with the level of family engagement directly tied to more significant skill gains. A comprehensive PAL pilot study brief expands upon the study’s background, results, and key findings.