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Published on: June 20, 2020
A Study of the Possibility of Detecting Pediatric Mild Developmental Delay Through a Serious Game: A Randomized
Ho Heon Kim1, Hong Wook Kwon1, Sambath Kao2
1Department of Biomedical Systems Informatics Yonsei University College of Medicine, Korea.
Insights
A new serious game, DoBrain, shows promise in assessing cognitive development in children. It offers a cost-effective alternative to traditional neuropsychological tests, especially in resource-limited settings for early developmental delay diagnosis.
Area of Science:
- Pediatric Neurology
- Cognitive Science
- Health Technology
Background:
- Early diagnosis of developmental delay is crucial but challenging in developing countries due to resource limitations.
- Neuropsychological tests (NPTs) for developmental delay diagnosis can have stability issues and require significant resources.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the effectiveness of a serious game (DoBrain) for cognitive assessment.
- To identify inconsistencies among existing NPTs.
- To explore DoBrain's potential as a complementary diagnostic tool for developmental delay.
Main Methods:
- Compared cognitive score improvements between a case group and a control group using the Mann-Whitney U test.
- Assessed DoBrain's potential for detecting mild developmental delay using CGI-S as a baseline.
- Analyzed the consistency of four NPTs and the sensitivity/specificity of DDST-II.
Main Results:
- The DoBrain game significantly improved memory scores in the case group compared to the control group (p<0.05).
- Four NPTs showed no inconsistencies; DDST-II had the highest sensitivity/specificity (0.43/0.96) against CGI-S.
- Games assessing discrimination, velocity, memory, and spatial perception demonstrated statistical significance (p<0.05).
Conclusions:
- The serious game DoBrain effectively enhances specific cognitive functions.
- DoBrain presents a viable low-cost, accessible alternative to traditional NPTs for cognitive assessment and developmental delay screening.
Abstract:
Although early diagnosis of developmental delay is important, there are challenges in identifying cognitive status in developing countries because of limited human and financial resources to perform diagnostic tests. Moreover, diagnosis stability of developmental delay in children using neuropsychological tests (NPTs) can remain unsettled. The aim of this study is (1) to verify the effectiveness of a serious game (DoBrain), (2) to identify existing inconsistencies between NPTs, and (3) to explore the potential of the serious game as a complement to diagnostic tools. Eligible children who had completed results of NPTs were selected (n=119/235; 116/235; case, control). With these children's scores, we performed the Mann- Whitney U test to investigate the effectiveness of the serious game by comparing the improvement of scores in both groups. Among the participants, we additionally selected a case group to identify the potential of the serious game for detecting mild developmental delay. Using the results of the CGI-S as a baseline, we defined the participants whose scores indicated more than mild illness (>=2 points) in at least one area as the suspected group. The score improvement related to memory in case group was greater than that of the control group (p<0.05). Furthermore, four of the NPTs were not inconsistent, and the sensitivity/specificity of DDST-II was the highest score considering CGI-S results as the ground truth (0.43; 0.96). Additionally, games measuring discrimination, velocity, memory, and spatial perception showed statistical significance (p<0.05). This study verifies that the serious game can help specific cognitive areas and suggests that the serious game could be used as a low-cost and unconstrained spatiotemporal alternative to NPTs.
