APA Expert Report on Children's and Adolescents' Learning With Educational Technology

Key Findings

• — Ten recommendations: identify learning goals; judge tools by learning outcomes rather than engagement or enjoyment; move beyond screen time to what technology replaces; choose research-based learning strategies; prefer simple designs that prevent multitasking; approach generative AI with extra caution and age-appropriate guardrails; make adult involvement significant; place the burden of evidence on developers and adopting institutions; invest in research that keeps pace with change
• — Recommendation 6 states that generative-AI tools may improve performance at the expense of independent learning and recommends teaching students to question chatbot assumptions and compare answers against other sources rather than banning use
• — The report notes that studies of AI companions raise concerns about emotional reliance, especially for socially, emotionally or psychologically vulnerable young people, and refers readers to APA's health advisory on AI and adolescent well-being for impacts beyond learning
• — Primary responsibility for demonstrating learning benefit is placed on developers and on the institutions that procure tools

Methodology Notes

Narrative evidence synthesis by an expert panel with roughly 135 references; no primary data; panel members are not named in the PDF front matter. Cover dated September 2026; the APA press release was embargoed to 3 September 2026 (per a verbatim republication), and the Wayback Machine captured the PDF on 9 September 2026. The apa.org landing page and the direct PDF URL return an Incapsula stub to automated fetchers; the curator read the full PDF (1.06 MB) from the Wayback raw capture of 2026-09-09 on 2026-09-17.

Sources