Educational Robotics and Attention to Diversity: A Case Study

<p style="text-align: justify;">In this study we focus our research on the case analysis of an eleven-year-old boy and his close relationship with technology, specifically robotics. The methodology of the study is experimental in nature, with the aim of improving the subject's attention span through robotics, thereby favouring his educational process and, consequently, his overall development. To this end, the attitudes, and aptitudes that this technological tool has provided the subject with are evaluated over a period of four years. Three data collection instruments were selected: questionnaire, interview, and observation. Among the conclusions we highlight, on the one hand, that the older the age and the greater the interest in robotics, the greater the individual's attention span and greater psychomotor coordination, increasing the improvement in the educational process and in their daily life. On the other hand, robotics is an effective way of orienting knowledge towards the personal and educational sphere and can provide advantages in integral development. </p>

Specific Interventions and the Role of Occupational Therapy on Children With ASD

Occupational therapy focuses on children's sensory processing and modulation. This chapter approaches specific interventions on children with ASD from several perspectives. OT is based on sensory integrative approach when working with children with ASD: helping parents understand their child's behavior, helping children organize responses to sensory input. The sensory integrative approach is a formulated activity plan that helps people who haven't been able to develop their own sensory recognition program. This plan allows a child to integrate all sorts of different sensory activities in their day so they can engage in and begin to work with a wide variety of sensory inputs. This provides a wide number of benefits. Their focus and attention span increases because they won't have meltdowns from trying to process too much information; sensory integrative approach helps to rebuild/reform the child's nervous system. This allows them to physically handle more sensory input. As a result, OT has been proven effective in working with children with ASD.

Can’t See the Words for the Letters: Whole Word Processing in Adolescents and a Novel “Visual” Intervention for Dyslexia

<p>Individuals with developmental dyslexia, considered as a group, perform poorly on tasks that involve phonological analysis, such as applying sight-sound rules to read new words, or analysing words into their component sounds (De Groot, Huettig, & Olivers, 2016; Temple & Marshall, 1983). However, dyslexia is also associated with other types of difficulties. For example, in some individuals, reading latencies increase disproportionately with the length of the word (De Luca, Barca, Burani, & Zoccolotti, 2008; Spinelli et al., 2005) suggesting they may have difficulties recognising familiar words as whole units (“whole word” processing). This thesis examined the relationship between the word length effect and overall reading proficiency in a diverse sample of 49 adolescents. We found that the length effect was a unique predictor of reading proficiency, even after factoring out variance in phonological skills (measured using a nonword reading task). We also tested the recent hypothesis that visual attention span - the number of letters a reader can capture in a single glance - is important for efficient whole word reading (Bosse, Tainturier, & Valdois, 2007). Contrary to this hypothesis, we found no association between the word length effect and scores on a standard measure of visual attention span (a partial report task). We also explored whether reading-delayed adolescents could benefit from an intervention targeting their specific cognitive profile. Five cases demonstrating a selective difficulty with either “phonological” or “whole word” skills completed two interventions. One targeted phonological skills: participants were trained to recognise and apply common sight-sound correspondences. The other targeted whole word skills: we reasoned that training participants to recognise commonly-occurring letter redundancies (e.g. ogue: rogue, synagogue, dialogue) could reduce the load on parallel letter processing. Only one of the five cases showed greater improvement in (untrained) word reading accuracy following their “target” intervention. However, four of the five showed intervention-specific improvements in reading latency. These results suggest that it could be valuable to consider heterogeneity when treating reading delay.</p>

Can’t See the Words for the Letters: Whole Word Processing in Adolescents and a Novel “Visual” Intervention for Dyslexia

<p>Individuals with developmental dyslexia, considered as a group, perform poorly on tasks that involve phonological analysis, such as applying sight-sound rules to read new words, or analysing words into their component sounds (De Groot, Huettig, & Olivers, 2016; Temple & Marshall, 1983). However, dyslexia is also associated with other types of difficulties. For example, in some individuals, reading latencies increase disproportionately with the length of the word (De Luca, Barca, Burani, & Zoccolotti, 2008; Spinelli et al., 2005) suggesting they may have difficulties recognising familiar words as whole units (“whole word” processing). This thesis examined the relationship between the word length effect and overall reading proficiency in a diverse sample of 49 adolescents. We found that the length effect was a unique predictor of reading proficiency, even after factoring out variance in phonological skills (measured using a nonword reading task). We also tested the recent hypothesis that visual attention span - the number of letters a reader can capture in a single glance - is important for efficient whole word reading (Bosse, Tainturier, & Valdois, 2007). Contrary to this hypothesis, we found no association between the word length effect and scores on a standard measure of visual attention span (a partial report task). We also explored whether reading-delayed adolescents could benefit from an intervention targeting their specific cognitive profile. Five cases demonstrating a selective difficulty with either “phonological” or “whole word” skills completed two interventions. One targeted phonological skills: participants were trained to recognise and apply common sight-sound correspondences. The other targeted whole word skills: we reasoned that training participants to recognise commonly-occurring letter redundancies (e.g. ogue: rogue, synagogue, dialogue) could reduce the load on parallel letter processing. Only one of the five cases showed greater improvement in (untrained) word reading accuracy following their “target” intervention. However, four of the five showed intervention-specific improvements in reading latency. These results suggest that it could be valuable to consider heterogeneity when treating reading delay.</p>

Treatment of Developmental Reading Disorders: A Visual Attention Span Deficit Approach

<p>A current theory of the cognitive underpinnings of developmental reading disorders supposes that two impairments contribute to the overall profile of disordered reading: one of phonological awareness and one of visual attention span. The severity of each impairment is different for each child. By identifying children that display a severe degree of one impairment, but a limited degree of the other, each impairment can be investigated. The current study identified one participant with a stronger phonological impairment, and one with a stronger impairment of visual attention span. They completed two training programs: one program tailored to improve phonology, and one tailored to improve visual span. Both treatments improved reading performance in both participants. It was expected that the treatment targeting each participant‟s particular cognitive impairment would prove more effective for that participant. However, both treatments were found to show similar levels of improvement with both participants.</p>

Treatment of Developmental Reading Disorders: A Visual Attention Span Deficit Approach

<p>A current theory of the cognitive underpinnings of developmental reading disorders supposes that two impairments contribute to the overall profile of disordered reading: one of phonological awareness and one of visual attention span. The severity of each impairment is different for each child. By identifying children that display a severe degree of one impairment, but a limited degree of the other, each impairment can be investigated. The current study identified one participant with a stronger phonological impairment, and one with a stronger impairment of visual attention span. They completed two training programs: one program tailored to improve phonology, and one tailored to improve visual span. Both treatments improved reading performance in both participants. It was expected that the treatment targeting each participant‟s particular cognitive impairment would prove more effective for that participant. However, both treatments were found to show similar levels of improvement with both participants.</p>

Using deliberate mistakes to heighten student attention

Attracting and retaining students’ attention is a concern for educators at every level of education, including those in higher education. Despite compelling evidence that student-centred pedagogies enhance attention, motivation and learning gain, exposition-centred delivery in forms such as lectures persists across higher education. Contemporary research on student attention suggests that student concentration in class begins to wane within 10 minutes; that neither tutorials or lectures tend to engage students effectively; and that the optimum length of a lecture is as little as 30 minutes. Where previous studies of student attention have focussed on the impacts of active listening, flipped classrooms and authentic assessment, the exploratory study reported here sought to determine the impact of a “deliberate mistake strategy” (DMS). The study engaged 103 undergraduate business students who self-assessed their attention span before and after a DMS was employed within their semester-long unit. Analysis of the students’ self-report involved paired sample t-tests and revealed that students’ attention span had increased significantly as the result of their engagement in DMS; there were no significant gendered differences. Cohen’s d revealed a large effect size with students reporting that DMS had helped them to increase their perceived attention span when in class. Amid continued debate about how to engage students and growing realisation that multiple approaches are needed, the findings suggests that the use of a simple strategy such as DMS merits further attention.

ROLE OF CASE SCENARIOS IN IMPROVING EFFECTIVENESS OF LARGE GROUP LECTURE FORMAT: DATA FROM UNDERGRADUATE MEDICAL STUDENTS

Teaching practices are being modified over time to more student centered approaches to improve the learning. Lecture being the corner stone of the teaching, need techniques to improve its effectiveness thus emphasizing “learning” rather than “teaching.” One of the main problems with long lectures is the low attention span of students. This study was undertaken to assess the role of adding case scenarios to the lectures, thus improving its learning outcomes. It is a descriptive study conducted in 3 rd year and 4th year students at CMH Multan Institute of Medical Sciences (CIMS) from 1st October 2018 to 1st April 2019. The focus of this study was to know impact of case scenarios in improving learning of the students in a lecture. During study period, on average two lectures per months of department of medicine, were taken with addition of case scenarios. The outcome measurement of this technique was done by two methods, feedback by the students and peer review from colleagues. There were a total of 61 participants who gave feedback on the lecture. Analysis of feedback performa revealed that almost 64% of students had a low attention span after 20 minutes into a well prepared and interesting lecture. Fifty to 90 percent of students agreed or completely agreed that adding aids like videos, graphics, algorithms or case scenarios etc improved the learning of students. More than ninety percent of participants completely agreed or agreed that the case scenarios are relevant, provide sufficient information, improve learning outcome and serve the purpose. The second part of the data collection was peer review; five colleagues attended the lectures during this period and in addition to filling feedback performa, gave valuable reviews on this. All the peers supported the idea of using case scenarios during lectures. We can conclude that adding case scenarios to the large group lecture format makes it more interactive, improved attention span and keeps attention of students which is difficult to achieve in a class of almost hundred.