Guidelines to assist building effective educational applications and e-games for children with ADHD

Abstract

Many researchers and psychology specialists aim to develop educational applications and e-games, which target cognitive abilities, behavioural and social skills for children with Attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). These applications apply certain learning strategies that might improve certain abilities and skills. They could be found easily in online stores, yet hard to judge the efficiency and desirability of each one unless they are evaluated and tested. For this reason, there was a need for the existence of a list of guidelines that could be used to assist building learning systems with effective e-strategies for children with ADHD. The main objective of this work was to form a foundation that guide software developers in implementing effective educational applications to develop these children’s abilities and skills. In addition, it may help educators and parents to distinguish between available applications. As our first stage of investigation, a meta-analytical review of multiple empirical studies was conducted, that outlined the effective game features on the development of abilities and skills for children with ADHD. Five units of analysis were done separately, targeting: attention, working memory, processing speed, behaviour, and social skills. The most significant and effective methods/features from the included studies were highlighted and used to draw out our list of guidelines. As the second stage, we investigated an existing e-game with certain game features to check if our guidelines apply, and evaluated its effectiveness toward improving cognition, behaviour and social skills. Seventeen female students with ADHD, from two primary schools in Saudi Arabia, participated in the evaluation. they played with the game three sessions a week, for four months. Significant improvements found on their cognition, behaviour, social skills and academic performance. As for our intervention, we validated ‘e-socialization’ component; by developing and evaluating a social online tool for children with ADHD. Seven Saudi students with ADHD, aged between 6 and 8 years, participated in the evaluation. The intervention involved playing ACTIVATE mini games, and a chatting session after each game. Children showed fairly significant improvements in games scores. The online socialization tool, found to be positively influencing children’s knowledge and experience exchange, motivation, and social skills. As a conclusion, we could say that our produced list of guidelines might assist in building effective applications and games for children with ADHD. Therefore, aiding the process of improving their academic achievements, improving their cognition and behaviour, and supporting socialisation.