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Interactive Block Games for Assessing Children's Cognitive Skills: Design and Preliminary Evaluation.
Kiju Lee1,2, Donghwa Jeong1, Rachael C Schindler3
1Distributed Intelligence and Robotics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, United States.
Frontiers in Pediatrics
|June 6, 2018
Summary
Tangible Geometric Games (TAG-Games) show promise for assessing young children's cognitive skills. Preliminary evaluations indicate correlations with standard tests and age, suggesting potential for autonomous cognitive assessment.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric cognitive assessment
- Technology-based learning tools
- Child development research
Background:
- Presents the design and preliminary evaluation of Tangible Geometric Games (TAG-Games).
- Utilizes sensor-integrated blocks (SIG-Blocks) and graphical user interfaces for cognitive assessment in children.
- Focuses on evaluating the efficacy of this novel technology-based approach for young children aged 4-8.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the preliminary efficacy of TAG-Games for cognitive assessment in young children.
- To explore the clinical utility of TAG-Games by comparing them with established cognitive tests.
- To investigate the correlation between computational task difficulty and participant performance.
Main Methods:
- Developed five sets of SIG-Blocks with geometric shapes, faces, emoticons, and colors for three TAG-Games: Assembly, Shape Matching, and Sequence Memory.
- Defined computational task difficulty measures to create varied item difficulties.
- Administered TAG-Games to 40 children (4-8 years) and compared results with three Wechsler subtests (Block Design, Matrix Reasoning, Picture Concept).
Main Results:
- Internal consistency of TAG-Games was assessed using split-half reliability.
- Found weak to moderate correlations between TAG-Games (Assembly, Shape Matching, Sequence Memory) and corresponding Wechsler subtests.
- Demonstrated significant correlation between computational task complexity and performance, as well as age-correlations with TAG-Game scores.
Conclusions:
- TAG-Games show potential for autonomous cognitive skill assessment in children.
- The technology-based approach demonstrates preliminary efficacy and clinical utility.
- Computational measures of task complexity are effective in assessing performance and cognitive skills.