The preference of preschool children for interactive traditional paper books has long been proved. More novel than traditional interactive books are the Augmented Reality (AR) books, which took a place in the book market for more than a decade now. For this study, we have used the Mosaic approach as a form of participatory research. The main methods used included children's presentations, interviews, observations, photo-taking, and taking part in a voting procedure. Our findings showed that the requirements for using AR books are not yet met by mobile devices that the youngest users have, so their audience is still limited. Even though the AR book seemed to be more promising for engaging children's attention longer, this was not possible because of the constraints imposed by the very delicate screen handling and children expressed their preference for the traditional interactive book.

Developmental dyslexia is defined as an unexpected specific and persistent failure to acquire efficient reading skills despite conventional instruction, adequate intelligence and sociocultural opportunity. This article reports the outcomes of a study that evaluated the implementation of a 4-month intervention program. The intervention consisted of structured activities aiming at improving (a) the children’s phonological awareness, (b) their visual and auditory memory, (c) their visual discrimination ability, and (d) their text comprehension. Participants were 12 children diagnosed as dyslexic matched with 12 typically achieving peers of similar age and gender. Baseline assessment consisted of a clinical neuropsychological battery of tests and Event Related Potentials (ERPs) and resulted in confirming the discrepancy between the dyslexic and the control group. Following the remediation program, the dyslexic group did not differ significantly from their control group in six out of eight neuropsychological tests. The electrophysiological results revealed that the two groups had similar P300 latencies in 12 out of the 15 electroencephalographic sites assessed. These findings suggest that children with dyslexia can improve their abilities through a remediation program which aims to strengthen their audio-visual and phonological processes along with their working memory capability.

A Neuropsychological Approach of Developmental Dyscalculia and a Screening Test Via a Web Application

Computer programming can help children develop problem solving and analytical skills. Thus, many countries have included computer science in the curriculum of primary school. Given differences in culture, available infrastructures, as well as the age pupils are introduced to computer science, forming a computer science curriculum still remains a challenge. Towards this end, this study focuses on ex-ploring the potential merits of introducing concurrent programming concepts ear-ly in the learning process. The basic premise is that although concurrent pro-gramming at its full details is a rather advanced topic even at university level, it is everyday practice to perform two or more tasks simultaneously that might need (or not) some sort of synchronization. Therefore, the tutor can capitalize on eve-ryday experience to explain basic concepts on concurrency. Such correlation be-tween life experience and concurrent programming challenges may expand the cognitive functions of the pupils and provide them with further background to improve analytical thinking. The proposed curriculum for fifth and sixth grade primary school was adopted in seven classes in Greece. Results indicate that un-initiated to programming pupils at the age of ten (fifth grade) were able to com-prehend basic concurrency topics, while pupils at the age of eleven (sixth grade) with some programming familiarity were able to understand more advanced concepts.

Computational Thinking (CT) has been an important concept for the computer science education community in the last 20 years. In this work we performed a systematic review of the literature regarding the computational thinking of children from kindergarten to primary school. We compiled a large dataset of one hundred and twenty (120) studies from the literature. Through analysis of these studies, we tried to reveal important insights and draw interesting and valid conclusions. We analyzed various qualitative and quantitative aspects of the studies, including the sample size, the year of publication, the country of origin, the studies’ design and duration, the computational tools used, and so on. An important aspect of the work is to highlight differences between different study designs. We identified a total of 120 studies, with more than half of them (>50%) originating from Asian countries. Most studies (82.5%) conducted some form of intervention, aiming to improve their computational thinking in students. A smaller proportion (17.5%) were assessment studies in which the authors conducted assessments regarding the children’s computational thinking. On average, intervention studies had a smaller number of participants, but differences in duration could not be identified. There was also a lack of large-scale longitudinal studies. Block-based coding (i.e., Scratch) and Plugged and Unplugged activities were observed in high numbers in both categories of studies. CT assessment tools showed great variability. Efforts for standardization and reaching a consensus are needed in this regard. Finally, robotic systems have been found to play a major role in interventions over the last years.

According to DSM 5, generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) is characterized by excessive, uncontrollable worry about various topics that occupies the majority of the subject’s time for a period of at least six months. The aforementioned state causes distress and/or functional impairments. This paper presents the outcomes of a pilot study that evaluated the implementation of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and CBT with an SSRIs intervention program. The participants comprised 16 children and adolescents with GAD (8 males and 8 females) matched with 16 typically developing peers (8 males and 8 females) aged from 10 to 16 years old (M = 12.56 SD = 2.18). Baseline assessment consisted of event related potentials (ERPs), which indicated that participants with GAD presented cognitive deficits in attention and memory, as they exhibited longer P300 latencies. Following treatment with the CBT program and/or medication, children and adolescents with GAD did not present statistically significantly longer P300 latencies and reaction times in comparison to the control group. Lastly, children and adolescents who followed the CBT program or the CBT program with psychopharmacological assistance did not reveal statistically significant differences in 13 out of 15 topographic brain areas and in reaction time.