Kindergarten Children
Conditions
Keywords
Cognitive change, Emotional change, Child development, Kindergarten
Brief summary
Cognitive (i.e. executive functions, memory) and socio-emotional (i.e. affection recognition) processes emerges at first years. These processes have been frequently related to adequate academic performance in the scientific literature (Passolunghi et al, 2015). Current research aimed at training cognitive processes found promising results using board game as a cognitive tool in children (Passolunghi & Costa, 2016). Considering the growing interest of teachers in this playful and possibly educational, cognitive and socio-emotional resource, a game program for these purposes has been designed to be used in kindergarten classrooms. The main aim of the present study is to test the efficacy of a cognitive and emotional training program in the classroom based on board games in kindergarten students (5 years old). For this, there will be an experimental group that will carry out the cognitive and emotional game program in the classroom implemented by the teachers of the participating centers, and a control group that will be on board games that do not directly activate cognitive and emotional processes. At the end of the interventions, the groups will be compensated by carrying out inversely both board game programs. The classes will be randomly assigned to an experimental group and a passive control group.
Detailed description
The hypothesis from this study are: i) the experimental group will show a significantly greater improvement in the neuropsychological tasks that measure cognitive and emotional processes compared to the active control group after the intervention; ii) the experimental group will show a significantly greater improvement in the tests evaluated by their parents after the intervention compared to the active control group. All hypotheses will be controlled for age and socioeconomic status.
Interventions
5 weeks / 2 sessions each week / 1 hour each session
Sponsors
Brain In Game scientific-technical service
Study design
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Intervention model
PARALLEL
Primary purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
DOUBLE (Subject, Outcomes Assessor)
Masking description
Double (outcomes assessor and participants)
Intervention model description
Cluster RCT
Eligibility
Sex/Gender
ALL
Age
5 Years to 6 Years
Healthy volunteers
Yes
Inclusion criteria
* To be enrolled in an ordinary educational center. * To provide informed consent from both parents and the participant's agreement to participate in the study.
Exclusion criteria
• Sensory/comprehension difficulties that make it impossible to carry out the program activities.
Design outcomes
Primary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Visual Memory | Baseline and Post-intervention (after 5 weeks) | Change in visual memory from baseline to post intervention. The task to assess visual memory is the subtest Picture Memory from the WPPSI-IV. This subtest consists of the child viewing a stimulus page of pictures for a specified time and then to select those same pictures from the options given. When the response is correct was scored 1, and 0 when incorrect. The task finished when the child made 3 consecutive mistakes. The total score is the sum of scores on Items 1-35, which ranged from 0 to 35. |
| Processing speed and inhibition | Baseline and Post-intervention (after 5 weeks) | Change in processing speed and inhibition from baseline to post intervention. The task used to assess these outcomes is included in the neuropsychological battery NEPSY-II. The task Naming and Inhibition consists of two blocks: a series of white and black shapes (circles and squares) and a series of arrows with different directions (up and down). The first part of each block is the task of shape/direction naming (in this case, a child had to name the shapes/direction he/she saw) at a rapid pace and the inhibition task. The second part if the inhibition task, in which the child need to change the rule: if he/she saw a square, he/she was to say circle and so forth or if he/she saw an up direction, need to say down. Each task record the number of corrected/non-corrected mistakes and the amount of time the child spent doing each task. |
| Affect recognition | Baseline and Post-intervention (after 5 weeks) | Change in affect recognition from baseline to post intervention. This subtest from the NEPSY-II assesses a child's ability to recognize six different emotional expressions (happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, fear, and a neutral expression) from photographs of children's faces in different tasks (select two photographs with identical affect from 3 or 4; select one of the four photographs that depicted identical affect as a photograph at the top of a page in the stimulus book). When the response is correct was scored 1, and 0 when incorrect. The total score is the sum of scores on Items 1-25, which ranged from 0 to 25. This subtest also gave the total of incorrect responses for each emotion. |
Secondary
| Measure | Time frame | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Hollingshead Index (Hollingshead, 1975) | Baseline | Sociodemographic data (age, sex, school year and socioeconomic status) |
| CHEXI (Giménez et al. 2022) | Baseline and Post-intervention (after 5 weeks) | Change in common behavioral executive functions from baseline to post intervention. The test consists of 24 items with 5 response options ranging from 1 (Definitely not true) to 5 (Definitely true). Two factors have been considered: WM and Inhibition. In this study, responders are the parents of the children. Higher ratings mean poor executive functioning. |
Countries
Spain
Outcome results
None listed