Interactive media for parental education on managing children chronic condition: a systematic review of the literature

BackgroundAlthough some research has examined the use of games for the education of pediatric patients, the use of technology for parental education seems like an appropriate application as it has been a part of the popular culture for at least 30years. The main objective of this systematic review is to examine the literature for research evaluating the use of interactive media in the education of parents of children with chronic conditions.MethodsWe searched the MEDLINE, PSYCHINFO, CINAHL, Cochrane database of systematic reviews and EMBASE databases from 1986 to 2014 seeking original investigations on the use of interactive media and video games to educate parents of children with chronic conditions. Cohort studies, randomized control trials, and observational studies were included in our search of the literature.Two investigators reviewed abstracts and full texts as necessary. The quality of the studies was assessed using the GRADE guidelines.Overall trend in the results and the degree of certainty in the results were considered when assessing the body of literature pertaining to our focused questions.ResultsOur initial search identified 4367 papers, but only 12 fulfilled the criterion established for final analysis, with the majority of the studies having flaws that reduced their quality. These papers reported mostly positive results supporting the idea that parent education is possible through interactive media.ConclusionWe found limited evidence of the effectiveness of using serious games and or interactive media to educate parents of children with chronic conditions.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12887-015-0517-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

ManyDogs 1: A multi-lab replication study of dogs' pointing comprehension

To promote collaboration across canine science, address replicability issues, and advance open science practices within animal cognition, we have launched the ManyDogs consortium, modeled on similar ManyX projects in other fields. We aimed to create a collaborative network that (a) uses large, diverse samples to investigate and replicate findings, (b) promotes open science practices of pre-registering hypotheses, methods, and analysis plans, (c) investigates the influence of differences across populations and breeds, and (d) examines how different research methods and testing environments influence the robustness of results. Our first study combines a phenomenon that appears to be highly reliable—dogs’ ability to follow human pointing—with a question that remains controversial: do dogs interpret pointing as a social communicative gesture or as a simple associative cue? We collected data (N = 455) from 20 research sites on two conditions of a 2-alternative object choice task: (1) Ostensive (pointing to a baited cup after making eye-contact and saying the dog’s name); (2) Non-ostensive (pointing without eye-contact, after a throat-clearing auditory control cue). Comparing performance between conditions, while both were significantly above chance, there was no significant difference in dogs’ responses. This result was consistent across sites. Further, we found that dogs followed contralateral, momentary pointing at lower rates than has been reported in prior research, suggesting that there are limits to the robustness of point-following behavior: not all pointing styles are equally likely to elicit a response. Together, these findings underscore the important role of procedural details in study design and the broader need for replication studies in canine science