Abstract:

Cognitive abilities as working memory, attention and language comprehension are key contributors to learning ability and school achievement (Fedorenko, 2014). These abilities are part of executive functions and play a key role in the development of children who face exceptional difficulties with language such as Developmental Language Disorder (DLD). Children with DLD make more impulsive and inattention errors when compared to children of typical development and they have difficulty handling distracting stimuli, suppressing reflexive reactions or unwanted information showing attention deficits in both auditory and visual processes (Ebert & Kohnert, 2011). Deficits in working memory are also a frequent finding, as children with DLD have difficulty managing the short-term storage and simultaneous processing of information. This function is crucial in word learning and the acquisition of lexical knowledge (Montgomery et al., 2010) and could seriously affect their potential for school success.
Instructional exercises in the form of digital games aiming to strengthen executive control of attention and working memory within language contexts could provide valuable practice to children with DLD. Similar digital programs have been used successfully in instructional interventions and they have been associated with improved school outcomes. For instance, GraphoGame (Carvalhais et al., 2020; Papadopoulos et al., 2015), Multi-Frank (Fasting & Lyster, 2005) and several other programs.

The digital instructional games presented in this work were developed to assist children with DLD to develop the following skills:
• Maintaining and following a sequence of auditory and visual instructions (listen and do, see and do),
• Remembering and reproducing sequences (increasingly longer),
• Remembering and finding stimuli based on visuospatial information,
• Identifying and visualizing important information in oral language (narratives) and map relationships between ideas to ameliorate and expedite comprehension,
• Practicing concept mapping through graphic strategies that help to organize information through visual aids, etc.

These instructional games are based on software gamification design standards providing a variety of learning experiences suitable for a wide range of abilities and needs in digital. They provide a unique and highly enticing practice that maintains child engagement in otherwise tedious repetitive exercise and achieve this goal through continuous feedback and child assistance in a minimally threatening manner. Having a fun and accessible training tool at their disposal, children can practice without constant supervision by a special education teacher or parent and their training can be more frequent, promoting self-confidence and self-monitoring of their learning. Furthermore, the above games operate through a digital platform for the instructional management of the provided intervention that includes common data center, user profile management, learning management sessions and teaching material management.
Data from the pilot implementation will be presented and discussed as they are expected to contribute significantly to ongoing scientific discussions on overcoming problems in sustained attention, attentional control, working memory and language comprehension in young children with language disorders at various stages of skill acquisition.

Keywords:

Instructional interventions, attentional control, working memory, language comprehension, language disorders, intervention effectiveness, digital intervention.