Good development of executive functions at school has been related to a better adaptation of children in different areas of their daily life and, especially, with adequate academic performance. Taking into account the importance of play in childhood, some interventions aimed at training these cognitive processes have been based on the use of playful elements, such as modern board games. Although it is still an unexplored field of research, some studies with older elementary school children and with ADHD children have found significant improvements in executive functions after training that had the board game as a key intervention element. However, we still do not have studies that have explored the possible cognitive benefits of its use throughout the primary stage with the general population. For this reason, the main objective of this study is to test the effectiveness of a cognitive training program based on modern board games in primary education children (6 to 12 years old).
As hypotheses, it is established that: i) the experimental group will present a significantly greater improvement in the neuropsychological tasks that measure executive functions and associated cognitive processes compared to the passive control group after the intervention; ii) the experimental group will present a significantly greater improvement in the tests evaluated by their parents after the intervention compared to the passive control group. All hypotheses will be controlled for age, estimate of IQ and socioeconomic status, as well as previous experience in board games and other cognitive activities.
Study Type
INTERVENTIONAL
Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
PREVENTION
Masking
SINGLE
Enrollment
35
Online play sessions with modern board and card games guided by the study researchers
Faculty of Education, Psychology and Social Work; University of Lleida
Lleida, Spain
Change in verbal updating from baseline to post intervention
Verbal keep track task (Tamnes et al., 2010)
Time frame: Baseline and post intervention (after 6 weeks)
Change in visuospatial updating from baseline to post intervention
Visuospatial keep track task (Tamnes et al., 2010)
Time frame: Baseline and post intervention (after 6 weeks)
Change in inhibition from baseline to post intervention
5 digits test (Sedó, 2004)
Time frame: Baseline and post intervention (after 6 weeks)
Change in cognitive flexibility from baseline to post intervention
5 digits test (Sedó, 2004)
Time frame: Baseline and post intervention (after 6 weeks)
Change in reasoning from baseline to post intervention
TONI-4 (Ruíz-Fernández, 2019)
Time frame: Baseline and post intervention (after 6 weeks)
Change in verbal fluency from baseline to post intervention
Phonological and semantic fluency (letter M and animals, ENFEN, Portellano \& Martínez-Arias, R. Zumárraga, 2009)
Time frame: Baseline and post intervention (after 6 weeks)
Change in behavioral executive functions from baseline to post intervention
ATENTO (Luque \& Sánchez-Sánchez, 2019)
Time frame: Baseline and post intervention (after 6 weeks)
Change in emotional and behavioral problems from baseline to post intervention
SENA (Sistema de Evaluación de Niños y Adolescentes, Fernández-Pinto, L Santamaría, Sánchez-Sánchez, F Carrasco, \& Del Barrio, 2015)
Time frame: Baseline and post intervention (after 6 weeks)
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