use of supplementary teaching aids, such as recordings, transcripts, and tapes; motion pictures and videotapes; radio and television; and computers, to improve learning.

Audiovisual education has developed rapidly since the 1920s by drawing on new technologies of communication, most recently the computer. History has shown that pictures, specimens, demonstrations, and other audiovisual means are effective teaching tools. John Amos Comenius (Comenius, John Amos) (1592–1670), a Bohemian educator, was one of the first to propose a systematic method of audiovisual education. His Orbis Sensualium Pictus (“Picture of the Sensual World”), published in 1658, was profusely illustrated with drawings, each playing an important role in teaching the lesson at hand. Comenius was followed by other great educators, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, John Locke, and J.H. Pestalozzi, who advocated the use of sensory materials to supplement teaching.

Audiovisual aids were widely employed by the armed services during and after World War II. This and much research over the intervening years indicate that, when skillfully used, audiovisual aids can lead to significant gains in recall, thinking, interest, and imagination.