Impact of SHOFER Computer Game on Visual-Motor Coordination in Children With Hearing Impairments

Abstract

The current study aimed at investigating the impact of SHOFER computer game on visual-motor coordination in children with hearing impairments. Methods: The current pre-test, post-test experimental study was conducted in Ahvaz, Iran in 2018. Sixteen preschool children with hearing impairment were randomly assigned into two groups of experimental (n=8) and control (n=8). The experimental group subjects played the SHOFER computer game (driving/racing genre) two 45-minute sessions per week for a five consecutive weeks, but the control group did not receive any intervention. Before and after the intervention, visual perception and attention, as visual-motor coordination components, were measured by the advanced Frostig test of visual perception and continuous performance test in both groups. Using SPSS version 21, the performance of the two groups was compared by running the Mann-Whitney and Wilcoxon tests. Results: The analysis of findings with the effect size indicator showed that the computer game increased attention and spatial perception in the experimental group. However, no significant difference was found between the groups, except in the sub-test of figure-ground perception. Discussion: The present study showed that commercial computer games can be used to improve visual-motor coordination of children with hearing impairments.

Developmental Coordination Disorders (DCD) and Interactive Games: A Literature Review

“…In another intervention program [37] in which 15 children, 7 boys and 8 girls, aged 7-13 years, with visual-motor coordination problems and mental retardation took part in and who practiced on the Nintendo Wii and CoTras, after 12 sessions of 40 minutes once a week, an improvement in the participants' visual perception and fine motor skills was observed. Improvements in the visuomotor perception of deaf preschool children with DCD were also observed in a study [34], conducted in 2018 in Iran (Table 3). The experimental study involved 16 deaf preschool children with DCD, who were divided into two groups: an experimental group of 8 people, of which 5 were boys, average age 7.10 years and a control group of an equal number of children with 4 boys, average age 7.9 years (Tables 2 & 3).…”

“…Regarding movement accuracy [47,50], one of the two studies [50] showed an improvement in both the experimental group and the control group, something that was not observed in the study by Jelsma et al [47], where no improvement was found for children in the intervention group. Regarding motor learning [34,52], and motor performance [57,62], it was not found in the examined research papers sufficient evidence to support or refute the use of interactive games to improve the above factors. However, a significant improvement was observed in the predictability of the movements and in the saving of forces during the execution of the activities (Bonney et al, 2017a;Kuijpers et al, 2021).…”

“…The results from the use of interactive games to deal with visual-motor coordination difficulties in the studies under review [27,34,40,42], appear overall positive, with changes in visual perception [37,44], being equally important (table 1). Regarding movement accuracy [47,50], one of the two studies [50] showed an improvement in both the experimental group and the control group, something that was not observed in the study by Jelsma et al [47], where no improvement was found for children in the intervention group.…”

“…The total duration of the interactive game intervention protocols in the reviewed studies ranged from three to sixteen weeks, with a mean of ~6.3 weeks, although five studies did not report the duration of the intervention protocols [30,38,[41][42][43]47], and in one study [47], only one intervention session of interactive games was performed resulting in children in the intervention group not showing the desired results in terms of improving their visual-motor coordination, something that did not happen in all the examined studies [23,24,[27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46]50,52,[54][55][56][57][58] in which a proportional relationship between intervention time and the use of interactive games was observed (table 2).…”

“…One of the issues that concerned us in this study was the effectiveness of intervention programs related to interactive games to deal with the difficulties of children with visual-motor coordination problems and accompanying diseases (autism spectrum disorders, attention deficit disorders and hyperactivity, Down syndrome, deaf children) (Table 3). After a thorough study of the included articles, a series of results emerged in which, in general, a positive impact of interactive games for children with DCD comorbidity with autism spectrum disorders, with attention deficit disorders and hyperactivity, with Down syndrome and with deaf children is evident [30,34,36,37,43,45] (Table 3). More specifically, in an intervention [36] applied to 9 children, 7 of whom were boys, aged 7-10 years, with special educational difficulties and motor problems, the findings demonstrated a positive effect of interactive games in the aforementioned areas (Table 3).…”