Home-Based Parent-Child Intervention to Enhance Executive Function

Abstract Koronis Biomedical Technologies (KBT) and its collaborators propose to develop and fully validate a low-cost, developmentally appropriate, smartphone-based cognitive intervention for young children. The proposed intervention seeks to address the needs of families with young children identified with deficits in Executive Function (EF), a critical set of cognitive processes associated with self-control. Emerging assessment tools provide science-based, normed cognitive assessments for children as young as two years old. Parents of young children identified with cognitive deficits have an unmet need for an affordable cognitive development intervention option. The proposed research seeks to address this need by building an in-home cognition training system that provides parents with a modular series of short, easy-to-follow, collaborative cognitive training activities they will share with their child. The system will employ a novel two-generational training model that views parental involvement as a critical component of the intervention process. In this model, an engaging, parent-facing smartphone application will deliver personalized daily training activities consisting of both traditional hands-on activities, as well as collaborative, parent-directed, child-facing video games. Building on a successful Phase I study showing promising validity and usability of the system, this approach supports multiple pathways for learning and building strong personal relationships between parent and child, while training the EF skills critical to success in goal-oriented pursuits.