Use of Serious Games in Interventions of Executive Functions in Neurodiverse Children: Systematic Review
Why this work is in the frame
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Bibliographic record
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Serious games (SG) have emerged as promising tools for cognitive training and therapeutic interventions, especially for enhancing executive functions. These games have demonstrated the potential to support individuals with diverse health conditions, including neurodevelopmental and cognitive disorders, through engaging and interactive experiences. However, a comprehensive understanding of the effectiveness of SG in enhancing executive functions is needed. OBJECTIVE: This systematic review aims to assess the impact of serious games on executive functions (EF), focusing on attention, working memory, cognitive flexibility, and inhibitory control. In addition, it explores the integration of SG into educational and therapeutic settings for individuals with cognitive and neurodevelopmental conditions. Only open access articles published from 2019 to the search date were included to capture the most recent advancements in the field. METHODS: A comprehensive search was conducted on June 20, 2024, across Scopus, Web of Science, and PubMed databases. Due to limited direct results linking SG and neurodiversity, separate searches were performed to analyze the relationship between SG and EF, as well as SG and neurodiverse populations. Two independent reviewers assessed the quality and risk of bias of the included studies using the Risk of Bias 2 tool for randomized studies and the Risk of Bias in Non-Randomized Studies of Interventions tool for nonrandomized studies. RESULTS: The review identified 16 studies that met the inclusion criteria. Of these, 15 addressed the use of SG for improving EF in neurodiverse populations, such as children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder, and down syndrome. These studies demonstrated significant improvements in various EF domains, including attention, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. However, there was notable heterogeneity in sample sizes, participant ages, and game types. Three studies specifically focused on individuals with down syndrome, showing promising results in improving cognitive functions. CONCLUSIONS: SG hold considerable potential as therapeutic tools for enhancing EF across neurodiverse populations. They have shown positive effects in improving cognitive skills and promoting inclusion in both educational and therapeutic settings. However, further research is required to optimize game design, assess long-term outcomes, and address the variability in study quality. The exclusive inclusion of open access studies may have limited the scope of the review, and future research should incorporate a broader range of studies to provide a more comprehensive understanding of SG's impact on neurodiversity. TRIAL REGISTRATION: PROSPERO CRD42024563231; https://tinyurl.com/ycxdymyb.
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Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it