Conectar Jugando Online: Board Games to Improve Executive Function in School-age Children (CJ-Online)

Brain In Game scientific-technical service

Status: Completed

Conditions: Child Development; Cognitive Change

Treatments: Behavioral: Conectar Jugando Online Program

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04823338

NCT2021CJ

Details and patient eligibility

About

Good development of executive functions at school has been related to a better adaptation of children in different areas of their daily life and, especially, with adequate academic performance. Taking into account the importance of play in childhood, some interventions aimed at training these cognitive processes have been based on the use of playful elements, such as modern board games. Although it is still an unexplored field of research, some studies with older elementary school children and with ADHD children have found significant improvements in executive functions after training that had the board game as a key intervention element. However, we still do not have studies that have explored the possible cognitive benefits of its use throughout the primary stage with the general population. For this reason, the main objective of this study is to test the effectiveness of a cognitive training program based on modern board games in primary education children (6 to 12 years old).

Full description

As hypotheses, it is established that: i) the experimental group will present a significantly greater improvement in the neuropsychological tasks that measure executive functions and associated cognitive processes compared to the passive control group after the intervention; ii) the experimental group will present a significantly greater improvement in the tests evaluated by their parents after the intervention compared to the passive control group. All hypotheses will be controlled for age, estimate of IQ and socioeconomic status, as well as previous experience in board games and other cognitive activities.

Enrollment: 35 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 6 to 12 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• be enrolled in a public, private or subsidized ordinary educational center
• provide informed consent from both parents and the participant's agreement to participate in the study

Exclusion criteria

• comprehension difficulties due to language reasons
• sensory difficulties that make it impossible to carry out the program activities
• not having the necessary equipment to monitor the sessions online

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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35 participants in 2 patient groups

Conectar Jugando Online Program

Experimental group

Description:

The program consisted of 12 one-hour intervention sessions. The sessions were biweekly with a total duration of 6 weeks. The modern board and card games used in the program were Bee Alert (Knizia, 2012), Monster Match (Gruhl \& Weir, 2018), Sherlock Express (Kermarrec, 2019), Streams (Itsubaki, 2011) and Blurble (Bernard, 2013). The play sessions were carried out in groups of between 2 and 4 boys and girls of similar ages (same school stage) formed according to the availability of the participants. In the sessions, the physical games were projected on the videoconference tool by the researcher and the participating boys and girls carried out their actions using their voice and the platform tools. The program was gamified though a narrative about a space travel to different planets in discovering new games and get different mission badges and super team badges in their logbook.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Conectar Jugando Online Program

Wait-list group

No Intervention group

Description:

Wait-list