Promoting Inclusive Education Through Executive Functions
For patients and families
In plain language
An automatic summary of structured registry data. It is an orientation aid, not a substitute for the official protocol or a physician assessment.
- What is being studied
- The protocol lists: InSchool Training Program, Regular school activities.
- Who it may be relevant to
- Registry conditions: Cognitive Training. Basic parameters: 5 years — 7 years · All.
- What needs checking
- Age, condition and sex are only basic indicators. Prior treatment, laboratory values and other mandatory requirements appear in the eligibility criteria below.
- Where it takes place
- Center list to be confirmed — check the primary protocol.
- Next step
- Save the trial, show it to the treating physician, and confirm current recruitment with the study center. Costs, documents and travel →
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Official title
Promoting Inclusive Education Through Executive Functions - Study Protocol of a Randomized Control Trial
Overview
Background: Recently governments worldwide have been doing enormous efforts to ensuring egalitarian educational opportunities for all children. However, the number of children that remain out of the school or lack proficiency in academic performance is still very worrying. One of the factors that seems to contribute to such inequalities is socioeconomic status (SES). SES strongly impacts the developmental trajectory of both the brain and cognitive abilities as off early childhood, further affecting learning and academic success. Despite the great interest in building inclusive societies and the promising results of executive functions' training programs for leveling the SES-achievement disparities, only a few studies have actually included schools from low-SES settings and lack a comprehensive, evidence-based background underlying the intervention protocols. Thus, with a preventive emphasis, the current project aims to implementing and evaluating a cost-effective game-based training protocol to promote and boost the development of executive functions in preschool and elementary school-aged children from disadvantaged contexts, ultimately contributing to prevent school dropout and reduce academic inequalities.
Detailed description
A randomized controlled trial will be implemented in Portuguese schools embedded in low-income settings. It will include a total of 396 participants, 132 per age group: 5,6 and 7 years old. At each age group a total of 132 children will be enrolled in the program for 4 weeks, 66 in the active control group, and 66 in the intervention group. The assessment protocol will include demographics, including SES, and evaluation of executive functions. Both groups -control and intervention- will complete the same assessment protocol at three distinct moments -baseline, post-intervention, and 6 months' follow-up. The training program will comprise the following: (i) 3 weekly sessions of 30 minutes each (ii) each session will be dedicated to train a specific domain of executive functions -working memory, inhibition and cognitive flexibility.
Interventions
- Behavioral InSchool Training Program
The goal of the intervention is to promote and boost the development of executive functions in preschool and elementary school-aged children by means of engagement in meaningful and challenging activities. The method to achieve this consists on weekly intervention sessions run by teachers with a set of games specially developed to train executive functions. - Behavioral Regular school activities
Children in the control group will be playing with the regular school activities.
Primary outcome measures
- Executive functions (Working memory) [Time frame: Through study completion, an average of 1 year.]
- Executive functions (Working memory) [Time frame: Through study completion, an average of 1 year.]
- Executive functions (Inhibitory control) [Time frame: Through study completion, an average of 1 year.]
- Executive functions (Inhibitory control) [Time frame: Through study completion, an average of 1 year.]
- Executive functions (set shifting) [Time frame: Through study completion, an average of 1 year.]
- Executive functions (set shifting) [Time frame: Through study completion, an average of 1 year.]
Secondary outcome measures (1)
- School Grades [Time frame: Through study completion, an average of 1 year.]
Eligibility criteria
Inclusion criteria
- Typically developed children of 5, 6, and 7 years old attending the regular curriculum at public educational services -kindergarten and elementary school.
Exclusion criteria
- Presence or history of cognitive deficits, neurological or psychiatric condition.
Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.
Healthy volunteers: Yes
Study design
- Allocation
- Randomized
- Model
- Parallel assignment
- Masking
- Single blind
- Primary purpose
- Prevention
Study locations
Center list to be confirmed — check the primary protocol.
Identifiers
NCT: NCT05472194 · EduFun2022