Maria Rosita Cecilia

Influence of Gaming Activities on Cognitive Performances

Playing games is an important voluntary activity that promotes cognitive, social and emotional development. In addition to traditional games, the advent of new technologies has favored an explosion of computer games, very popular among children. Against this background, the authors report their investigation regarding the effect of gaming activities on the cognitive performances of 7-11 years old children. The aim of the research was to analyze if both computer and traditional games had a positive influence on cognitive performance in childhood. 67 students participated in the study. The BVN 5-11 neuro-psychological test battery and an experimental questionnaire to detect the using habits of boards and technological games were used. Our findings highlighted that both the traditional and technological stimulation resulted effective in improving the cognitive performances of children.

The 1st Release of the TERENCE Learner GUI: The User-Based Usability Evaluation

This paper reports the user-based usability evaluations performed in Italy of the first release of the learner Graphical User Interface (GUI) of the TERENCE project. This project aims at developing an adaptive learning system for training the reasoning about stories’ events of the TERENCE learners in Italy and in UK. Learners are 7-11 year old children, hearing and deaf, that have difficulties in correlating the events of a story, making inferences about them, and detecting inconsistencies. The evaluation of the first release of the TERENCE adaptive learning system software prototypes tackles their usability in order to quickly reveal possible usability problems, as well as to address the TERENCE team to solve them, before the large scale evaluation. Moreover, authors try to carried out important general issues related to the experiment performance.

A Study on Teaching and Learning the von Neumann Machine in a 3D Learning Environment

The paper presents the design of three serious games for teaching the basis of the von Neumann’s machine in a 3D environment. For this objective, the paper initially defines a framework useful to describe the design, then uses the framework to introduce the games. Furthermore, it presents a first prototype of one of the described games. It then describes the protocol that will used to evaluate the usability, proficiency and psychological effectiveness of such games, and ends with a brief discussion on the proposed study.

Effectiveness and Usability of TERENCE Adaptive Learning System: The First Pilot Study with Children with Special Educational Needs

Early school leaving (ESL) is caused by a number of factors, including learning difficulties, social exclusion, lack of motivation, and scarce guidance and support from the school system. However, in Italy some progress was made to improve school quality and outcomes. In this context, we have run a project in an Italian primary and secondary school to test the psycho-pedagogical effectiveness and the usability of a compensatory technological tool, i.e., the TERENCE software, to support the learning process of students with Special Educational Needs (SENs), i.e., students that need particular attention due to biological, social and/or environmental factors. Specifically, we tested the TERENCE software to improve reading comprehension skills and stimulate learning motivation of 16 Italian students with SENs due to cultural, linguistic and socio-economic factors. Children used TERENCE in 8 interactive sessions, for 2.5 hours per session. Their comprehension skills were analyzed via MT standardized test at the beginning and at the end of the stimulation plan. Also usability data was gathered by adopting user-based methods like observational evaluation and semi-structured interviews. The results of the experiment were: (i) students’ reading comprehension skills were significantly improved, (ii) students were highly involved and motivated and they learned how to interact with TERENCE very quickly. The pilot study with students with SENs suggested that TERENCE can be easily and effectively used to improve the learning experience of learners with SENs.

Prevalence and risk factors of vision impairment among children of employees of Telecom, Italy

Purpose To define the prevalence, causes, and risk factors of vision impairment (VI) in children. Methods In this study, relatives of Association for Supplemental Health Insurance to the Employees of Telecom members aged 5-16 years were examined in all Italian regions. A standardized record card was used to collect data on medical history; keratometry; objective refraction; uncorrected, presenting, and best-corrected visual acuity (VA); examination of the pupils, adnexa, and anterior segment; direct ophthalmoscopy; posterior segment and fundus examination; and assessment for ocular pathology. Binocular and monocular VI were defined by a VA <5/10 (or <20/40). Results The campaign included 17,508 children, 12,798 of whom (73.1%) were examined (and 12,740 on whom all VA data were gathered). The prevalence of uncorrected, presenting, and best-corrected VI in the better eye was 9.0%, 2.51%, and 0.10%, respectively. The following variables were associated with presenting VI: age 10-16 years, family history of myopia, female sex, family history of keratoconus, and hypertension. Myopia is the main cause of VI (82.6%). A total of 96% of children with presenting VI had correctable VI. Conclusions Correctable VI because of myopia is an important public health problem in school-age children in Italy.

The Relationship between Psycho-pedagogical and Usability Data in the TERENCE Evaluation Methodology

The TERENCE project was an European FP7 project that improved reading comprehension of its primary users, namely, 7–11 years old children, hearing and deaf, from primary schools, with deep text comprehension problems. The project developed an adaptive learning system (ALS) delivering learning material and tasks in an adaptive fashion, according to the profiles of its learners. The paper describes the TERENCE evaluation methodology, its innovative aspect (i.e., the parallel investigation of psycho-pedagogical effectiveness and usability), and focuses on the relationship between usability and psycho-pedagogical data. The study shows that precision in smart games is linearly related to comprehension.