Learning to say "no"

Vanessa Coriea picks her clothes out for school with much thought and consideration, but she has no intentions of wearing them.

She has another young Latina girl to dress — her avatar.

The 18-year-old is helping the University of Central Florida develop a new computer game with life-size avatars and real-life scenarios that aims to teach Latina girls to resist peer pressure they face on a daily basis, especially the temptation to have sex at a young age.

“I helped to develop the characters, stories and clothing since Day 1,” she said. “I liked it and really learned a lot.”

Coriea said she believes the game will give young girls the experience to make better decisions in their own lives, and making better decisions is exactly the goal UCF has in mind.

Anne Norris, a nursing professor, and Charles Hughes, a computer science professor, are working with UCF’s Institute for Simulation and Training during the next two years to develop the game with a $434,800 grant from the National Institutes of Health. They hope will address high Latina pregnancy rates.

“It gives you a chance to practice your social skills, and you are not going to have your friends laughing at you,” Norris said. “And you might have some virtual consequences in the game… so it gives you a chance to play and learn from it.”

She said parents are excited about the game because they see it helping girls attain more skills that will help them navigate through middle and even into high school.

UCF spokeswoman Kimberly Lewis said although the game helps girls learn to deal with all types of social pressures, ultimately the goal is to prevent this age group from having sex.

“A lot of premature births are born often times from mothers who are younger than 16, and that’s incredibly expensive,” Lewis said. “And 12-15 years old is really the time to teach them those social skills.”

According to the Florida Department of Health, birth rates for the mothers in Florida aged 10-14 dropped from 2 percent in 1991 to 1.1 percent in 2000. But birth rates for Hispanic teen girls aged 15-19 increased 9 percent since 1991.

By working with groups of Latina students participating in the city of Orlando After-School All-Stars program based at Stonewall Jackson Middle School — a school with a high Hispanic population — UCF researchers are hoping this “research project” will eventually have a lasting impact on the high rate of teenage pregnancies in Latina girls.

“They’ve been working very closely with us and have been very supportive of the project,” Norris said of All-Stars.

The game is intended to be played in after-school and youth outreach programs, such as the All-Stars, and will be run by trained teachers and counselors. Before it is released, the game will be tested on a small group of Latina girls, whose progress will be studied three, six and nine months after they start playing the game.

“It was a win-win situation, and I call win-win situation no-brainers,” All-Stars’ Ray Crump said. “Bottom line is as long as you are educating the kids… than I don’t have any problem with that.”

Stonewall Jackson Middle School Principal Eddie Ruiz said teaching students to resist peer pressure is an important topic to the school.

“We try to teach them a lot of character education… we also have groups and clubs at the school so they can voice their opinions,” Ruiz said. “We try to always teach them the message about how important your choices are in life.”

Norris said because they’re dealing with content that falls in the realm of sex education, UCF is working to make sure the game meets Orange County Public Schools guidelines, but the overall goal of the game is to increase the effectiveness of the sex education program.

Norris said the game is still a work in progress, but UCF hopes to release it by 2012 for a permanent way to increase sex education and help young Latina girls deal with daily pressures they face.

“I like how the [game] deals with everything — drugs, hanging out with the wrong people, lots of things — because not everyone has just one problem they deal with,” Coriea said. “It’s crazy how we deal with so much at a young age.”