Concepción Alcalde

Improving attention behaviour in primary and secondary school children with a Computer Assisted Instruction procedure

Attention disorders are one of the major sources of poor school performance. This research project was designed to examine whether a Computer Assisted Instruction (CAI) approach would be successful in achieving higher rates of attention. In order to increase attention behaviour during school time, psychologically‐designed software was developed. The software, called “How to improve your mental skills,” consists of three games based on multimedia perception tasks. First, 155 elementary school children with an average age of 12.4 years, from Cadiz (Spain) School District, were evaluated with two attention tests, the Perception Differences Test (PDT), and the subtest Spatial of Primary Mental Aptitude (S‐PMA). Students were divided and balanced into one experimental and two control groups, according to their scores on the PDT. Then, 10 training sessions, of 25 minutes each, with the software “How to improve your mental skills”, were administered to the experimental group. Children from control group 1 played...

Acquisition of Basic Concepts by Children with Intellectual Disabilities Using a Computer-Assisted Learning Approach

Computer-assisted learning can be an efficient learning-teaching procedure. Although there is an extensive educational software tradition for this approach, few have better performance than standard drill-and-practice methods. In this work, the specific software “Lets Play With …” was designed to teach concepts of colours, shapes, and body position to children with intellectual disabilities. The software structure follows the Gagné instructional design and applied behaviour analysis. The program was carried out with 39 boys and 21 girls who were special education students in the Cadiz School District. Statistically significant differences were found between groups taught with and without the software.

Stimulus Control with Computer Assisted Learning

Computer Assisted Learning (CAL) has been shown to be an efficient learning-teaching procedure. Although there is an extensive educational software tradition using CAL approaches, few of them have demonstrated a better student performance than standard drill and practice methods. The purpose of this study was (a) to evaluate the effectiveness of the “Lets Play With...” software program, and (b) to evaluate the effectiveness of a prompt (i.e. a blinking object) used in the program. The educational software “Lets Play With...” was designed to teach basic concepts involving shapes and body positions to preschool students. The software structure follows a behavioral design and uses a stimulus control procedure. The study was carried out with 64 preschool students in the Cadiz (Spain) School District. Statistically significant differences were found between the experimental group and a control group.

El uso de esquemas figurativos para ayudar a resolver problemas aritméticos

Resumen Los alumnos con dificultades de aprendizaje presentan, en ocasiones, déficits en matemáticas, especialmente en el área de resolución de problemas. Parece bien establecido que los niveles de resolución de problemas son significativamente más bajos en los alumnos con dificultades de aprendizaje. Los programas instruccionales diseñados para la mejora del aprendizaje en resolución de problemas aritméticos han establecido la importancia de incorporar en el entrenamiento estrategias de dominio de conceptos y tareas de planificación. Aunque se hace una revisión de aquellos procedimientos que utilizan pensamiento estratégico como herramienta instruccional, se expone con más detalle un programa instruccional ya contrastado para ayudar a resolver problemas aritméticos dentro del modelo mixto cognitivo comportamental. El procedimiento permite desarrollar el pensamiento estratégico de los alumnos/as y utiliza tanto dispositivos de respuesta con feedback directo, como aprendizaje de representación gráfica de los componentes del problema. Tras exponer los fundamentos del programa y sus aspectos más prácticos, se especifican las implicaciones educativas más significativas de su uso en entornos de educación primaria.

POSITIVE BEHAVIORAL INTERVENTION IN CHILDREN WHO WERE WARDS OF THE COURT ATTENDING A MAINSTREAM SCHOOL

This report looked at the effects of treatment using contingency contracts and token economy procedures in three children, two 14 yr. and one 8 yr., who were wards of the court and attending a mainstream school. Students presented problems of adaptation to school, such as making constant noises with the mouth, hands, or pencil on the desk; frequently emitted raucous cries in the classroom; destruction of school resource materials; verbal aggression to classmates and teachers; verbal rejection of all academic work, refusing to do it, making negative comments prior to starting any school activity, in addition to lack of motivation for undertaking school activities. A 4-mo. individual treatment using contingency contracts and token economy behavioral procedures was implemented, with several follow-up sessions. The results indicated an adaptation of behavior to the school environment, confirmed by teachers, significantly reducing the incidence of insults, the destruction of school materials, and indolence during class sessions. These students are at high risk for social exclusion. Interventions have potential social importance in possible prevention of adult criminality, increasing academic achievement, and decreasing social exclusion.