Empowering Children With Down Syndrome by Enhancing Emergency Preparedness Through Serious Games: Quasi-Experimental...

Area of Science:

• Pediatric Health
• Educational Technology
• Special Education

Background:

• Children with Down syndrome (DS) face challenges in acquiring life skills, including emergency preparedness, due to cognitive and adaptive difficulties.
• Traditional training methods are often ineffective for children with DS, leading to poor engagement and knowledge retention.
• Serious games offer a promising avenue for enhancing skill development in individuals with cognitive impairments.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design, implement, and evaluate Risk Resist, an adaptive serious game for improving emergency preparedness in children with DS.
• To assess if adaptive game-based learning leads to superior learning gains and engagement compared to traditional teacher-led training.
• To personalize the learning experience through a dynamic difficulty adjustment algorithm based on real-time performance.

Main Methods:

• A quasi-experimental study involving 18 children with DS (aged 8-12) assigned to an experimental (Risk Resist game) or control (traditional instruction) group.
• Learning outcomes measured via pre- and post-intervention knowledge tests; engagement assessed by teacher observations using a Likert scale.
• A machine learning model (Random Forest Regressor) dynamically adjusted game difficulty based on success rate, response time, and behavioral patterns.

Main Results:

• The experimental group showed significantly higher learning gains (mean 3.6) than the control group (mean 2.0; P<.001).
• Engagement levels were significantly greater in the game-based group (mean 4.54) compared to the control group (mean 4.01; P=.002).
• A strong positive correlation (r=0.85; P<.001) was found between engagement and learning gain.

Conclusions:

• Risk Resist effectively enhances both engagement and learning outcomes in children with DS.
• Adaptive algorithms in serious games provide a personalized and responsive learning experience.
• Serious games are a viable and impactful tool for emergency preparedness training in special education.