Enhancing cognitive and academic skills in children through adaptive virtual reality and tablet-based interventions

Both theoretical and empirical research to date suggests that cognitive control abilities, including attention and working memory, play an integral role in math processing (Baddeley, 1996; Baddeley, 2001) and reading comprehension (Conesa and Duñabeitia, 2021), with recent work demonstrating that adaptive cognitive training can improve reading fluency. Here we looked to evaluate the effectiveness of a new platform for school aged children (Mastermind Cognitive Training Program™) designed to enhance core cognitive control abilities delivered via virtual reality (VR) and tablet platforms. Here we present the preliminary findings of this study from school 1 (N= 60, aged 8-9; note the total targeted enrollment is N=200 across 3 schools from diverse educational backgrounds and with varied reading ability). This study is designed to evaluate the effectiveness of the Mastermind Cognitive Training program through a randomized controlled trial on VR (N =20) or tablets (N = 20) versus an expectancy-matched placebo control arm where participants trained on selected math and coding education applications (N = 20) engaged in free educational apps on tablet. Participants completed a ten-week training program, consisting of three 30-minute sessions per week. Outcomes were assessed using measures of i) academic performance measurements such as reading fluency and math fluency, ii) eye tracking measures, as well as iii) measures of cognitive performance, including working memory, sustained attention, and cognitive flexibility. Preliminary analyses reveal significant improvements in reading fluency for children in the VR intervention group compared to controls (p= .011). No such difference was present for the tablet versus control group (p= .161). For math fluency, the VR group also showed a significant improvement from baseline (p= .001), with a trend in the control group that trained on math and reading exercises (p= .062). These preliminary findings suggest that the VR version of the training was more effective in engendering academic improvements than a tablet approach. Follow-up analyses will describe how these results evolve with the inclusion of students from each additional school, the impact of expectancy-based effects, potential changes in eye tracking and cognitive abilities, as well as possible changes in inattention as measured by teacher-led reports on the Vanderbilt Survey of Attention.