Inhibitory control stimulation in elementary school children through digital games: A systematic mapping study

The inhibitory control is a component of the executive functions that allows the individual to inhibit inadequate behaviors, resist distractions and select a relevant stimulus when executing activities. In the neuropsychology field, evidences of stimulation and improvement of the inhibitory control through school interventions is sought by using computerized software, such as digital games. These research studies constitute an important investigation area within the executive functions in ecological approaches. This paper presents a systematic mapping study on inhibitory control stimulation in elementary school children with the use of digital games. The investigation encompassed an automated database search with further backward snowballing procedure with the final selection for additional publications as research strategy. The automated search considered six databases: SCOPUS, PubMed, IEEE Explore Digital Library, ACM Library, Springer Link, and Scielo. The initial database search found 641 works published between 2014 and 2019. After the exclusion and inclusion criteria were considered, three publications related to digital games or mobile applications were found and selected for analysis, which focused on inhibitory control or correlated processes stimulation in school-based interventions with elementary school children. Results indicated that investigations within the field are incipient, pointing to an emerging research area.