MONTSENSORY POCKET: DYSGRAPHIA CHILDREN’S LEARNING TOOL USING MOBILE APPLICATION

The fundamentals of writing are the most essential and crucial skill which all children must grasp. It is because with the ability of writing children will be able to perceive the skill of literacy and as well as other areas of life. On the other hand, some children still struggle with the capability of skill to write and this indicates them to be diagnosed with “Dysgraphia”. Dysgraphia is a neurological condition that results in problems with written abilities and expression. Children with dysgraphia have writing abilities that are below the level anticipated of individuals based on their intellectual, age, and educational backgroun

Содействие нейрокогнитивному развитию в детском возрасте

Original manuscript received April 02, 2020.Revised manuscript accepted July 09, 2020.First published online November 13, 2020.The main psychological aspects in promoting holistic health are related to attention, care and love within the relations. It all starts in early childhood when important bonds are built between parents and child. This bond will constitute this baby as a human being who will internalize the world as it is presented to him transforming objectivity into subjectivity. This work is based on the Social Historical theory founded by Luria, Vygotsky and Leontiev, who established that psychology would provide means to acknowledge how a natural process connected to a cultural process can produce the superior mental functions. It uses didactically the principles of mediation and zone of proximal development. Considering that relations are the key for this development of superior mental functions it is important to orientate parents, teachers and community itself so that conditions are provided, with knowledge and conscience, for this development to occur. When you are present in a relation nervous connections are promoted. Results are observed qualitatively focusing that each person is an individual self and that relationships are essential to produce development. Interactions between the brain and the formation of mental functions require the maturity of the nervous system as well as an active process which emphasizes relations of two or more human beings. Therefore, the most important is not what to do but how to do. The brain grows better within a stable environment of support and low levels of stress. Affirms that safe relations are the key to healthy growth of the brain as well as emotional regulation that stimulates learning and adaptation to reality.Основными психологическими факторами, способствующими комплексному здоровью, являются внимание, забота и любовь близких людей. Формирование основ здоровья начинается в раннем детстве, когда закладывается связь между родителями и ребенком. Эта связь формирует ребенка как личность; ребенок видит мир глазами близких ему людей, превращая объективную реальность в субъективную. В основе данной статьи лежит социально-историческая теория, разработанная А. Р. Лурия, Л. С. Выготским и А. Н. Леонтьевым; они установили, что психология предоставляет средства для понимания того, как естественные процессы в совокупности с культурными могут порождать высшие психические функции. Дидактическими основаниями являются принципы опосредствования и зоны ближайшего развития. Изучение взаимоотношений является ключевым фактором для развития высших психических функций у ребенка; необходимо профессионально и грамотно скоординировать взаимоотношения между родителями, учителями и обществом таким образом, чтобы сформировать условия для этого развития. Когда человек находится во взаимоотношениях, формируются его нервные связи. В статье дается качественный анализ результатов исследования, акцент делается на индивидуальность каждого человека и на то, что взаимоотношения необходимы для развития. Основой установления связей между мозгом и формированием психических функций является зрелость нервной системы и активный процесс, который включает в себя взаимоотношения между двумя и более людьми. Соответственно, наиболее важным представляется не то, что нужно делать, а как это нужно делать. Мозг формируется лучше в условиях стабильной поддержки и низкого уровня стресса, поэтому безопасные взаимоотношения являются залогом здорового развития мозга и эмоциональной регуляции, которая стимулирует развитие познавательной способности и адаптации к действительности

Educación remota y disgrafía en estudiantes de 4to de primaria de la Institución Educativa Jorge Basadre, Arequipa. 2022

La investigación trata sobre factores y la educación virtual tuvo como objetivo general determinar la relación entre educación remota y disgrafía en estudiantes de 4to de primaria de la Institución Educativa Jorge Basadre, Arequipa. 2022. Es de enfoque cuantitativo, de tipo básica, no experimental y correlacional causal. La muestra estuvo compuesta por 89 estudiantes que corresponden al total de estudiantes de 4to de primaria de la IE Jorge Basadre. Se aplicaron los instrumentos de Educación Digital y Test TALE, los cuales fueron validados por expertos y contaron con una confiabilidad de confiabilidad de 0,913 y 0,922 correspondientemente. De los resultados de la investigación se determinó que la relación entre la educación remota y disgrafía en los niños de 4to grado de primaria de la Institución Educativa Jorge Basadre del distrito de José Luis Bustamante y Rivero de la ciudad de Arequipa – 2022, al advertirse que existe una relación significativa entre dichas variables con un valor de (rho=0,665)

Feature Selection as a Tool to Support the Diagnosis of Cognitive Impairments Through Handwriting Analysis

Cognitive Impairments are cognitive deficits that are greater than expected for a person of a given age and level of education, but which do not significantly interfere with the daily life of the people affected. They range from mild to severe and are seen as a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease, currently the most common neurodegenerative brain disorder worldwide. In a previous study, we presented an experimental protocol comprising different handwriting tasks to be carried out by patients and a healthy control group: the aim was to investigate whether the analysis of the handwriting could be used as a tool to support the diagnosis of this kind of impairment. In the study presented here, we used a well-known and widely-used feature selection approach to determine the most effective features for predicting the symptoms related to cognitive impairments via handwriting analysis. Our intention is to deepen the knowledge about the different cognitive functions affected by the onset of these diseases, as well as to improve the performance of the tools developed to support their diagnosis. The results showed that different sets of highly discriminant features, closely related to the cognitive skills impaired, were selected for the handwriting tasks making up the protocol, thus supporting our hypothesis that their use can be very helpful to support the diagnosis of cognitive impairment

DYSGRAPHIA INTERVENTION: A MIXED-METHODS EXAMINATION OF A DYSLEXIC DYSGRAPHIA AND MOTOR DYSGRAPHIA INTERVENTION

This dissertation investigated the efficacy of an eight-week dysgraphia intervention, created to address dyslexic dysgraphia and motor dysgraphia. Following multiple case study and mixed-methods designs, the researcher quantitatively assessed the copying fluency and compositional fluency for three high school male participants prior to and after six weeks of intervention activities. Intervention activities included preliminary conversation, gross motor skills activities, fine motor skills activities, writing process instruction, and metacognitive discussion. The participants also responded to a survey which elicited quantitative (32 Likert scale statements) and qualitative (4 open-ended questions) data to assess their perceptions of the intervention. Analysis of the quantitative data indicated varying gains and losses in writing fluency but an overall favorable perception of the intervention. The participants responded positively to approximately 78.13% of the Likert scale statements. Content analysis of the open-ended questions indicated that the participants perceived the intervention as an aid to their ability to compose written text. While not every participant experienced an increase in both copying and composing fluency, the intervention did produce some increases for two participants. These findings indicate that further study of this intervention is necessary to determine its generalizable and transferable efficacy for other ages, genders, and educational settings

Una aplicación móvil para estudiantes con dificultades de aprendizaje: diseño y validación

En los últimos años, el uso de tecnologías y dispositivos portátiles se ha generalizado en muchos campos y también en la educación. Hay además muchas investigaciones que demuestran la enorme difusión del uso y la popularidad de los dispositivos móviles entre los jóvenes. La tecnología móvil ofrece la capacidad de apoyar el aprendizaje y también ofrece tanto a los estudiantes como a los profesores oportunidades de aprendizaje personalizadas. Los principales factores para la adopción e implementación del M-Learning en las escuelas son la disposición y disposición de los maestros. Hay muchos estudios que demuestran las actitudes y percepciones positivas de los profesores de secundaria sobre el uso de dispositivos móviles en la escuela. Es más, un gran número de encuestas indican que el uso de tecnologías móviles, afecta positivamente la educación de los niños con necesidades educativas especiales como el autismo, dislexia, etc. Esta tesis doctoral tiene como objetivo el diseño y la evaluación de una aplicación educativa para Android que se espera ayude a los estudiantes de escuela secundaria griega con dificultades de aprendizaje a adquirir habilidades adicionales en matemáticas. En primer lugar, se han analizado las actitudes y percepciones de los profesores griegos de educación especial sobre el uso de las TIC en clase para asegurarse, por una parte, de que el conocimiento de los profesores en este campo es adecuado, teniendo en cuenta el hecho de que el conocimiento de las TIC no es una habilidad previa para convertirse en profesor. Esta etapa se realiza a través de cuestionarios estructurados y el análisis de los datos de las respuestas se ha realizado con el software IBM SPSS Statistics. En segundo lugar, en el marco de la elaboración de la tesis se ha creado una nueva aplicación tecnológica Android, destinada a ayudar a los estudiantes con dificultades de aprendizaje en el campo de las matemáticas. La herramienta de desarrollo de aplicaciones que se ha utilizado es Android Studio, el IDE oficial (Entorno de Desarrollo Integrado) para la plataforma Android. El lenguaje de programación que se ha utilizado es Java. Antes de su implementación la aplicación fue evaluada por 7 docentes especializados tanto en el área de informática como en matemáticas a través de un cuestionario estructurado. Se implementó su uso durante dos meses en escuelas de secundaria educación . Después de su implementación se evaluaron los resultados a través de entrevistas a profesores de educación especial y cuestionarios dirigidos a estudiantes con dificultades de aprendizaje con el fin de estimar, por un lado, las opiniones e impresiones de los estudiantes y profesores y, por otro lado, las habilidades potenciales que los estudiantes podían haber adquirido. El análisis estadístico de los cuestionarios de evaluación docente reveló que los profesores de matemáticas e informática tienen una actitud positiva hacia la aplicación “Love2LearnMaths”. El mismo punto de vista positivo hacia la aplicación se puede observar en las respuestas de los profesores entrevistados, que son los docentes de matemáticas para estudiantes con NEE. Los estudiantes de los departamentos de integración, por otro lado, parecen estar positivamente entusiasmados con el uso de la aplicación “Love2LearnMaths” como lo revela el análisis de los cuestionarios de los estudiantes para la evaluación de la aplicación.In recent years the use of portable technologies and devices has become widespread in many fields, such as in the economy, tourism, entertainment, but also in education. There are many surveys that prove the huge spread of use and popularity of mobile devices (mobile phones, tablets and laptops) among young people. On the other hand, mobile phones are mostly preferred compared to other mobile devices by secondary school students. Mobile technology offers the ability to support learning and also offers to both students and teachers personalized learning opportunities. The main factors for the adoption and implementation of M-Learning in schools are the willingness and readiness of teachers. There are many studies that prove the positive attitudes and perceptions of secondary school teachers on the use of mobile devices in school. However, specifically for Greece much fewer studies have been carried out. What is more, a great number of surveys indicate that the use of mobile technologies, affects positively the education of children with special educational needs such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia etc. Therefore, this PhD dissertation aims at the design and evaluation of an educational Android application that is expected to help Greek gymnasium’s students with learning difficulties to acquire extra skills in mathematics. Firstly, the attitudes and perceptions of Greek special education teachers about the use of ICTs in class have been analyzed to make sure on the one hand that teachers’ knowledge on this field is adequate, considering the fact that ICTs’ knowledge is not a prerequisite skill for becoming teacher. Additionally, teachers’ attitudes towards the use of ICTs in class have been clarified. This stage is carried out via structured questionnaires and the data analysis of the answers has been made with IBM SPSS Statistics software. Secondly, in the framework of the thesis’ elaboration, a new technological Android application has been created, aiming at assisting students with learning difficulties in the field of mathematics. The application development tool that has been used is Android Studio, the official IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for the Android platform. The programming language that has been used is Java, while XML’s knowledge was required in order to customize the formatting and the appearance of the application. The application was to be implemented in integration departments of two secondary Greek schools within a period of six months (finally the period was reduced to two due to covid-19 restrictions). Before its implementation the application was evaluated by 7 teachers specialized in both the area of informatics and mathematics via a structured questionnaire. After its implementation the results were evaluated via interviews with special education teachers and questionnaires addressed to students with learning difficulties in order to estimate on the one hand the opinions and impressions of the students and teachers because of its use and, on the other hand the potential skills that the students may have acquired. The statistical analysis of teachers' evaluation questionnaires revealed that mathematicians and informatics’ teachers have a positive attitude towards the application “Love2LearnMaths”. Similar attitudes towards mobile devices and apps in general had been announced by the Special Education teachers of the first phase of our research. The same positive point of view towards the application “Love2LearnMaths” can be observed in the answers of the interviewees, who are the special education mathematicians. Students of integration departments on the other hand, appear positively enthusiastic about the use of the application “Love2LearnMaths” as revealed by the analysis of Students’ questionnaires for the evaluation of the app.

TestGraphia, a Software System for the Early Diagnosis of Dysgraphia

Dysgraphia, which is known as a writing disorder, is a specific disorder of writing regarding the reproduction of alphabetical and numerical signs. Dysgraphia may be related to dyspraxia, which is secondary to incomplete lateralization and characterized by a difficulty to reproduce alphabetical and numerical signs. Since the causes of dysgraphia are unknown, the rapid detection of symptoms is very important. In academic and clinical uses, the most common tool for detecting dysgraphia is an evaluation of the quality of writing on paper sheets. A writing analysis is based on rules for scoring the writing quality. In this paper, we discuss TestGraphia, which is a software system that can support doctors in making diagnoses and monitoring patients with dysgraphia in an objective manner. The system is based on known document analysis algorithms and modified or specially designed algorithms. Based on this software, a forms analysis requires considerably less time than that needed by traditional methods, enabling large screening activities and reducing time and cost. Potential dynamic changes in dysgraphia screening can be assessed by monitoring the quality of writing in a non-invasive way with reduced costs, both in the laboratory and the patient's home, and the appropriate frequency. In the system that we will describe, the mean time to execute a diagnosis is nearly ten times faster with trustworthy results