A growing interest about alternative methods for the assessment and training of executive functions in children with neurodevelopmental disorders is emerging. Technology is considerably advancing, and the gamification is giving an important contribution in making the interventions more engaging. However, sometimes a “top-down” design process creates mismatches between technologies and both therapists and children's need. Thus, the analysis of requirements and user's feedback play a crucial role to identify their perspective regarding the technology and gauge its design and development. The present work aims to describe ASTRAS, a software for the assessment and training of executive functions in children, the requirements of therapists and children the software try to fulfil and, finally, the preliminary data reporting the experience of a sample of therapists about the application of software with their patients. In that regard, a survey was used to obtain the opinion of thirty-two therapists about the: a) usability (i.e., comprehensibility, simplicity of the software and the usefulness of its feature); b) the clinical validity of the tasks; c) the attractiveness of the tasks for the children; d) their general opinion about the software. Results demonstrated satisfying responses of the therapists about the software: they considered ASTRAS easy to use and clinically adapt to assesses and train executive functions in their patients. Furthermore, they reported that children well reacted to the software and specifically they were more likely to be engaged in training games than in assessment tasks. Bind together, our results show that ASTRAS is usable for therapists and engaging for their patients, which makes it promising for the assessment and training of executive functions in children. © 2021 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Assessment and training of executive functions in children through a game-based software: Preliminary usability data from therapists' perspective
Rega Angelo
2021-01-01
Abstract
A growing interest about alternative methods for the assessment and training of executive functions in children with neurodevelopmental disorders is emerging. Technology is considerably advancing, and the gamification is giving an important contribution in making the interventions more engaging. However, sometimes a “top-down” design process creates mismatches between technologies and both therapists and children's need. Thus, the analysis of requirements and user's feedback play a crucial role to identify their perspective regarding the technology and gauge its design and development. The present work aims to describe ASTRAS, a software for the assessment and training of executive functions in children, the requirements of therapists and children the software try to fulfil and, finally, the preliminary data reporting the experience of a sample of therapists about the application of software with their patients. In that regard, a survey was used to obtain the opinion of thirty-two therapists about the: a) usability (i.e., comprehensibility, simplicity of the software and the usefulness of its feature); b) the clinical validity of the tasks; c) the attractiveness of the tasks for the children; d) their general opinion about the software. Results demonstrated satisfying responses of the therapists about the software: they considered ASTRAS easy to use and clinically adapt to assesses and train executive functions in their patients. Furthermore, they reported that children well reacted to the software and specifically they were more likely to be engaged in training games than in assessment tasks. Bind together, our results show that ASTRAS is usable for therapists and engaging for their patients, which makes it promising for the assessment and training of executive functions in children. © 2021 Copyright for this paper by its authors.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
