A GO intervention program for enhancing elementary school children's cognitive functions and control abilities of emotion and behavior: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

Trials

Ryuta Kawashima⁴  Hiroyuki Arai²  Naoki Tomita²  Hikaru Takeuchi¹  Carlos Miyauchi⁴  Rui Nouchi¹  Masahito Ichinomiya³  Jiro Yoshida³  Yoshiyuki Tachibana¹ 

[1] Department of Applied Brain Science, Smart Aging International Research Center, IDAC, Tohoku University, Japan, Seiryou-machi 4-1, Aoba-ku, Sendai-shi, Miyagi-ken 980-8575, Japan;Department of Geriatrics and Gerontology, IDAC, Tohoku University, Seiryou-machi 1-1, Aoba-ku, Sendai-shi, Miyagi-ken 980-8574, Japan;The Nihon Ki-in 9F, 1-7-20 Yaesu, Chu-ou-ku, Tokyo-to 103-0028, Japan;Department of Functional Brain Imaging, IDAC, Tohoku University, Seiryou-machi 4-1, Aoba-ku, Sendai-shi, Miyagi-ken 980-8575, Japan

关键词: Development;    Elementary school children;    Randomized controlled trial;    GO intervention program;    Executive function;   

Others  :  1095709
DOI  :  10.1186/1745-6215-13-8

 received in 2011-09-12, accepted in 2012-01-12,  发布年份 2012

【 摘 要 】

Background

Executive function is critical for children's healthy development. We propose an intervention program to enhance children's executive function using the game, GO. Many neuroimaging studies have revealed that playing GO is related to executive function. In addition, previous studies also revealed that executive function can be enhanced by training. We will perform a randomized controlled trial to investigate the effectiveness of a GO intervention group and a control group without intervention.

Methods/Design

35 elementary school children aged 8 to 10 were recruited from Edogawa elementary school in Tokyo, Japan. They will be randomized into two groups; either the 5-week GO intervention group or no-intervention control group. We will ask the participants of the intervention group to join the GO course which will be held once every week for five weeks (total: six times). In the GO course, the children will be taught GO by the GO masters of the Nihon Ki-in and enjoy it for an hour. Besides the course, the participants will perform GO problems about twenty minutes a day, three times a week during the intervention period. We will use the Stroop task, the digit span, the Raven's colored progressive matrices, the Span-board task, and the Behavioral inhibition/behavioral activation scale for the outcome measures. Outcomes will be measured at a baseline (Assessment 1) and 5 weeks after the intervention program started (Assessment 2). The intervention group will be compared with the control group using one-way analyses of covariance with the difference between Assessment 1 and Assessment 2 measures as dependent variables and pretest scores as covariates.

Discussion

To our knowledge, this study will be the first RCT to investigate the efficacy of a GO intervention program for elementary school children. If this intervention is effective, we will be able to take the next steps in making an educational program to enhance children's executive function and other cognitive abilities using GO. In addition, we further will investigate the transfer effects of the GO intervention program through executive function. We also will investigate neuroplasticity with the GO intervention using neuroimaging.

Trial Registration

UMIN Clinical Trials Registry UMIN000006324

【 授权许可】

   
2012 Tachibana et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

Figure 1.

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