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Towards ai-based interactive game intervention to monitor concentration levels in children with attention deficit

  • Diego R. Faria
  • , Jordan J. Bird
  • , Cintia Daquana
  • , Jhonatan Kobylarz
  • , Pedro P.S. Ayrosa
  • Department of Special Education and Inclusion
  • Universidade Federal do Paraná
  • Londrina State University

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

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Abstract

—Preliminary results to a new approach for neurocognitive training on academic engagement and monitoring of attention levels in children with learning difficulties is presented. Machine Learning (ML) techniques and a Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) are used to develop an interactive AI-based game for educational therapy to monitor the progress of children’s concentration levels during specific cognitive tasks. Our approach resorts to data acquisition of brainwaves of children using electroencephalography (EEG) to classify concentration levels through model calibration. The real-time brainwave patterns are inputs to our game interface to monitor concentration levels. When the concentration drops, the educational game can personalize to the user by changing the challenge of the training or providing some new visual or auditory stimuli to the user in order to reduce the attention loss. To understand concentration level patterns, we collected brainwave data from children at various primary schools in Brazil who have intellectual disabilities e.g. autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Preliminary results show that we successfully benchmarked (96%) the brainwave patterns acquired by using various classical ML techniques. The result obtained through the automatic classification of brainwaves will be fundamental to further develop our full approach. Positive feedback from questionnaires was obtained for both, the AI-based game and the engagement and motivation during the training sessions.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)641-648
Number of pages8
JournalInternational Journal of Information and Education Technology
Volume10
Issue number9
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Sept 2020

Bibliographical note

Copyright © 2020 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).

Funding

This work is partially supported by Fundação Araucária Paraná/ CONFAP Brazil and the Royal Society UK / Newton Fund, through a mobility grant awarded to Dr Diego Faria and Prof. Pedro Ayrosa for the project: “Engagement through AI-based Interactive Games: Neurocognitive training for children with learning difficulties” in 2019. We would like to especially thank the Municipal Education Secretariat of Cambé-PR, Brazil, in particular, Claudia S. C. Segura, for the kind assistance and help in conducting the experiments with children in local primary schools in Cambé-PR, and the directors of these schools: Irma Hilda Soares Municipal School; Padre Symphoriano Kopf Municipal School; and Professor Jacídio Correia Municipal School.

Keywords

  • AI-based games
  • BCI
  • Children with attention deficit
  • Machine learning
  • Technology for educational therapy

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