FRAMEWORK GUIDELINES TO DESIGN AND DEVELOP GAME-BASED COGNITIVE TRAINING

The interest in developing alternative methods for cognitive training in educational and clinical contexts is emerging. Classical cognitive tasks are typically deemed effortful and repetitive, which in turn may lead to participant disengagement and negatively impact data collection quality. On the other hand, technology is rapidly advancing especially among children and adolescents. Accordingly, technological tools (e.g. software) may provide a possible solution for challenges faced by users’ in both educational and clinical fields. However, design is critical to successfully develop technologies aiming at improving cognitive functioning. Planning, organization and research are mandatory to find out those features that contribute to create a match between technologies and users’ need. Among them, “bottom-up” design processes (i.e., the analysis of users’ perspectives and requirements), gamification (i.e., the application of game component with a primary goal other than entertainment) and the focus on high-order cognitive domains (i.e., executive functions), may play a crucial role in overcoming classic cognitive assessment and training tasks limits, by making them easier, funnier and more efficient. So far, several technological platforms developed for cognitive training have been released. However, in our view, a small number of them reflects this design approach. In the present work we sought to describe a set of rules to help professionals involved in design and develop technologies for cognitive training.