ENGagement through Adaptive GamEs: Neurocognitive training Intervention to Monitor Progress of Children with Attention Deficit

This project will develop a new approach for neurocognitive training on academic engagement in order to monitor
attention levels in children with attention deficit. Machine Learning techniques and Brain-Computer Interface will be combined
to develop an interactive AI-based game for educational therapy
to monitor the progress of children’s concentration levels. This
approach will resort to data acquisition of brainwaves of children
wearing an electroencephalography (EEG) headset to classify
concentration levels. The real-time brainwave patterns are inputs
to the adaptive game interface to monitor concentration while
a child interacts with the game interface. When the child’s
concentration drops, the educational game can personalise to
the user by changing the challenge or providing new visual or
auditory stimuli to the user in order to reduce the attention
loss. To understand concentration level patterns, we will collect
brainwave data from primary school children who have intellectual disabilities e.g. Autism Spectrum Disorder, Cerebral Palsy,
and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder to generate a new
dataset of concentration levels for each population. Non-clinical
children will also participate so that we will be able to generate a
single signature of a desirable model of concentration to be used
as a template to measure the dissimilarity with other populations
and check whether the dissimilarity is reduced over time. An
initial data acquisition was done in Brazil and we want to extend
to Portugal (Cerebral Palsy Association of Coimbra) to increase
the diversity of the data and further develop this project towards
an advanced digital intervention tool. The result of the automatic
classification of brainwaves will be fundamental to the adaptive
game and to monitor children progress over time. Questionnaires
about children emotional responses will be collected, so that
we can verify the acceptance of the AI-based game and the
engagement and motivation during the initial training sessions
in Portugal. The educational game will be developed to stimulate
children’s perception, reasoning, attention and memory.