Promoting Inclusive Education Through Executive Functions (EduFun)

University of Minho

Status: Begins enrollment in 7 months

Conditions: Cognitive Training

Treatments: Behavioral: InSchool Training Program; Behavioral: Regular school activities

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT05472194

EduFun2022

Details and patient eligibility

About

Background: Recently governments worldwide have been doing enormous efforts to ensuring egalitarian educational opportunities for all children. However, the number of children that remain out of the school or lack proficiency in academic performance is still very worrying. One of the factors that seems to contribute to such inequalities is socioeconomic status (SES). SES strongly impacts the developmental trajectory of both the brain and cognitive abilities as off early childhood, further affecting learning and academic success.

Despite the great interest in building inclusive societies and the promising results of executive functions' training programs for leveling the SES-achievement disparities, only a few studies have actually included schools from low-SES settings and lack a comprehensive, evidence-based background underlying the intervention protocols. Thus, with a preventive emphasis, the current project aims to implementing and evaluating a cost-effective game-based training protocol to promote and boost the development of executive functions in preschool and elementary school-aged children from disadvantaged contexts, ultimately contributing to prevent school dropout and reduce academic inequalities.

Full description

A randomized controlled trial will be implemented in Portuguese schools embedded in low-income settings. It will include a total of 396 participants, 132 per age group: 5,6 and 7 years old. At each age group a total of 132 children will be enrolled in the program for 4 weeks, 66 in the active control group, and 66 in the intervention group. The assessment protocol will include demographics, including SES, and evaluation of executive functions. Both groups -control and intervention- will complete the same assessment protocol at three distinct moments -baseline, post-intervention, and 6 months' follow-up. The training program will comprise the following: (i) 3 weekly sessions of 30 minutes each (ii) each session will be dedicated to train a specific domain of executive functions -working memory, inhibition and cognitive flexibility.

Enrollment: 470 estimated patients

Sex: All

Ages: 5 to 7 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Typically developed children of 5, 6, and 7 years old attending the regular curriculum at public educational services -kindergarten and elementary school.

Exclusion criteria

• Presence or history of cognitive deficits, neurological or psychiatric condition.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Prevention

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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470 participants in 2 patient groups

Experimental Condition

Experimental group

Description:

Participants allocated to the Experimental condition will be following a cognitive training program using a set of game-based activities specifically developed to train executive functions.

Treatment:

Behavioral: InSchool Training Program

Control Condition

Active Comparator group

Description:

Participants allocated to the Control condition will be following the same sessions of the training program (similar to the Experimental group) while playing with a set of commonly used games within the school context (e.g. puzzles).

Treatment:

Behavioral: Regular school activities