Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Serious Games
Date Submitted: Mar 31, 2024
Open Peer Review Period: Apr 2, 2024 - May 28, 2024
Date Accepted: Sep 11, 2024
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Use of serious games in intervention of executive functions and children with Down Syndrome: A systematic review
ABSTRACT
Background:
Neurodiversity encompasses diverse cognitive variations, including conditions like Down syndrome, affecting cognitive and emotional development. Individuals within the neurodiverse spectrum may encounter challenges related to executive functions, impacting daily activities and social participation. This review recognizes Down syndrome within the broader context of neurodiversity, exploring the intersection of executive functions and serious games as interventions for cognitive development.
Objective:
The primary goal of this review is to analyze three interconnected themes: neurodiversity, executive functions, and serious games. While considering the positive impact of serious games on children with Down syndrome, the focus extends on exploring broader applications within neurodiversity.
Methods:
As of January 20, 2024, a thorough search was conducted on Scopus and WoS, covering serious games, executive functions, and neurodiversity with an emphasis on Down syndrome. Due to limited results, separate equations were used to explore the relationship between serious games and Down syndrome, as well as serious games and executive functions. Two independent reviewers evaluated retrieved studies, highlighting specific game applications in the neurodiverse context.
Results:
Out of 18 articles, three focused on serious games and Down syndrome, while 15 addressed serious games in the context of executive functions within neurodiversity. The studies collectively emphasized serious games' effectiveness in enhancing cognitive development and overall quality of life for individuals within the neurodiverse spectrum.
Conclusions:
The synthesis of findings suggests that serious games hold potential to improve cognitive abilities and promote inclusion in educational settings for individuals with diverse cognitive profiles. Beyond Down syndrome, serious games, along with web applications, robotics, and virtual reality, emerge as promising therapeutic tools. Game design elements and exergaming demonstrate the ability to enhance cognition and skill development. Positive effects have been observed not only in older adults' attention, executive functions, and speech processing but also in various neurodiverse populations. However, further research is needed to explore long-term effects, optimize game design, and assess their impact on several aspects of neurodiversity.
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.