2019
Antle, Alissa N., McLaren, Elgin-Skye, Fiedler, Holly, Johnson, Naomi
Evaluating the Impact of a Mobile Neurofeedback App for Young Children at School and Home Proceedings Article
In: Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1–13, Association for Computing Machinery, Glasgow, Scotland Uk, 2019, ISBN: 9781450359702.
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: brain computer interfaces, children, field studies, hci for mental health, mindfull, positive computing, self-regulation
@inproceedings{10.1145/3290605.3300266,
title = {Evaluating the Impact of a Mobile Neurofeedback App for Young Children at School and Home},
author = {Alissa N. Antle and Elgin-Skye McLaren and Holly Fiedler and Naomi Johnson},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300266},
doi = {10.1145/3290605.3300266},
isbn = {9781450359702},
year = {2019},
date = {2019-01-01},
urldate = {2019-01-01},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems},
pages = {1–13},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {Glasgow, Scotland Uk},
series = {CHI '19},
abstract = {About 18% of children in industrialized countries suffer from anxiety. We designed a mobile neurofeedback app, called Mind-Full, based on existing design guidelines. Our goal was for young children in lower socio-economic status schools to improve their ability to self-regulate anxiety by using Mind-Full. In this paper we report on quantitative outcomes from a sixteen-week field evaluation with 20 young children (aged 5 to 8). Our methodological contribution includes using a control group, validated measures of anxiety and stress, and assessing transfer and maintenance. Results from teacher and parent behavioral surveys indicated gains in children's ability to self-regulate anxiety at school and home; a decrease in anxious behaviors at home; and cortisol tests showed variable improvement in physiological stress levels. We contribute to HCI for mental health with evidence that it is viable to use a mobile app in lower socio-economic status schools to improve children's mental health.},
keywords = {brain computer interfaces, children, field studies, hci for mental health, mindfull, positive computing, self-regulation},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}
About 18% of children in industrialized countries suffer from anxiety. We designed a mobile neurofeedback app, called Mind-Full, based on existing design guidelines. Our goal was for young children in lower socio-economic status schools to improve their ability to self-regulate anxiety by using Mind-Full. In this paper we report on quantitative outcomes from a sixteen-week field evaluation with 20 young children (aged 5 to 8). Our methodological contribution includes using a control group, validated measures of anxiety and stress, and assessing transfer and maintenance. Results from teacher and parent behavioral surveys indicated gains in children's ability to self-regulate anxiety at school and home; a decrease in anxious behaviors at home; and cortisol tests showed variable improvement in physiological stress levels. We contribute to HCI for mental health with evidence that it is viable to use a mobile app in lower socio-economic status schools to improve children's mental health.
2018
Fan, Min, Baishya, Uddipana, Mclaren, Elgin-Skye, Antle, Alissa N., Sarker, Shubhra, Vincent, Amal
Block Talks: A Tangible and Augmented Reality Toolkit for Children to Learn Sentence Construction Proceedings Article
In: Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, pp. 1–6, Association for Computing Machinery, Montreal QC, Canada, 2018, ISBN: 9781450356213.
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: augmented reality, blocks, children, colour cues, sentence construction, Tangible User Interfaces
@inproceedings{10.1145/3170427.3188576,
title = {Block Talks: A Tangible and Augmented Reality Toolkit for Children to Learn Sentence Construction},
author = {Min Fan and Uddipana Baishya and Elgin-Skye Mclaren and Alissa N. Antle and Shubhra Sarker and Amal Vincent},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3170427.3188576},
doi = {10.1145/3170427.3188576},
isbn = {9781450356213},
year = {2018},
date = {2018-01-01},
booktitle = {Extended Abstracts of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems},
pages = {1–6},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {Montreal QC, Canada},
series = {CHI EA '18},
abstract = {The Block Talks toolkit combines the educational potential of tangible computing and augmented reality (AR) technologies to help children learn English sentence construction. Although examples of tangible AR reading systems for children currently exist, few focus specifically on learning sentence structure. Block Talks was developed using ordinary teaching supplies including letter tiles and blocks that can be manipulated to form words and sentences. A companion app allows children to scan these sentences to receive audio and AR feedback. Block Talks takes advantage of colour cues to draw children's attention to sentence structure patterns. This paper outlines existing tangible and AR systems for literacy learning, details the Block Talks design rationale, and concludes with a discussion of the advantages of using a combined tangible and AR approach for teaching sentence construction.},
keywords = {augmented reality, blocks, children, colour cues, sentence construction, Tangible User Interfaces},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}
The Block Talks toolkit combines the educational potential of tangible computing and augmented reality (AR) technologies to help children learn English sentence construction. Although examples of tangible AR reading systems for children currently exist, few focus specifically on learning sentence structure. Block Talks was developed using ordinary teaching supplies including letter tiles and blocks that can be manipulated to form words and sentences. A companion app allows children to scan these sentences to receive audio and AR feedback. Block Talks takes advantage of colour cues to draw children's attention to sentence structure patterns. This paper outlines existing tangible and AR systems for literacy learning, details the Block Talks design rationale, and concludes with a discussion of the advantages of using a combined tangible and AR approach for teaching sentence construction.
Antle, Alissa N., Chesick, Leslie, Mclaren, Elgin-Skye
Opening up the Design Space of Neurofeedback Brain--Computer Interfaces for Children Journal Article
In: ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact., vol. 24, no. 6, 2018, ISSN: 1073-0516.
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: Brain-computer interfaces, children, conceptual framework, design, mental health, mindfull, self-regulation, strong concepts
@article{10.1145/3131607,
title = {Opening up the Design Space of Neurofeedback Brain--Computer Interfaces for Children},
author = {Alissa N. Antle and Leslie Chesick and Elgin-Skye Mclaren},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3131607},
doi = {10.1145/3131607},
issn = {1073-0516},
year = {2018},
date = {2018-01-01},
urldate = {2018-01-01},
journal = {ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact.},
volume = {24},
number = {6},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {New York, NY, USA},
abstract = {Brain--computer interface applications (BCIs) utilizing neurofeedback (NF) can make invisible brain states visible in real time. Learning to recognize, modify, and regulate brain states is critical to all children's development and can improve learning, and emotional and mental health outcomes. How can we design usable and effective NF BCIs that help children learn and practice brain state self-regulation? Our contribution is a list of challenges for this emerging design space and a conceptual framework that addresses those challenges. The framework is composed of five interrelated strong concepts that we adapted from other design spaces. We derived the concepts reflectively, theoretically, and empirically through a design research process in which we created and evaluated a NF BCI, called Mind-Full, designed to help children living in Nepal who had suffered from complex trauma learn to self-regulate anxiety and attention. We add rigor to our derivation methodology by horizontally and vertically grounding our concepts, that is, relating them to similar concepts in the literature and instantiations in other artifacts. We illustrate the generative power of the concepts and the inter-relationships between them through the description of two new NF BCIs we created using the framework for urban and indigenous children with anxiety and attentional challenges. We then show the versatility of our framework by describing how it inspired and informed the conceptual design of three NF BCIs for different types of self-regulation: selective attention and working memory, pain management, and depression. Last, we discuss the contestability, defensibility, and substantiveness of our conceptual framework in order to ensure rigor in our research design process. Our contribution is a rigorously derived design framework that opens up this new and emerging design space of NF BCI's for children for other researchers and designers.},
keywords = {Brain-computer interfaces, children, conceptual framework, design, mental health, mindfull, self-regulation, strong concepts},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {article}
}
Brain--computer interface applications (BCIs) utilizing neurofeedback (NF) can make invisible brain states visible in real time. Learning to recognize, modify, and regulate brain states is critical to all children's development and can improve learning, and emotional and mental health outcomes. How can we design usable and effective NF BCIs that help children learn and practice brain state self-regulation? Our contribution is a list of challenges for this emerging design space and a conceptual framework that addresses those challenges. The framework is composed of five interrelated strong concepts that we adapted from other design spaces. We derived the concepts reflectively, theoretically, and empirically through a design research process in which we created and evaluated a NF BCI, called Mind-Full, designed to help children living in Nepal who had suffered from complex trauma learn to self-regulate anxiety and attention. We add rigor to our derivation methodology by horizontally and vertically grounding our concepts, that is, relating them to similar concepts in the literature and instantiations in other artifacts. We illustrate the generative power of the concepts and the inter-relationships between them through the description of two new NF BCIs we created using the framework for urban and indigenous children with anxiety and attentional challenges. We then show the versatility of our framework by describing how it inspired and informed the conceptual design of three NF BCIs for different types of self-regulation: selective attention and working memory, pain management, and depression. Last, we discuss the contestability, defensibility, and substantiveness of our conceptual framework in order to ensure rigor in our research design process. Our contribution is a rigorously derived design framework that opens up this new and emerging design space of NF BCI's for children for other researchers and designers.
2017
McLaren, Elgin-Skye, Antle, Alissa N.
Exploring and Evaluating Sound for Helping Children Self-Regulate with a Brain-Computer Application Proceedings Article
In: Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Interaction Design and Children, pp. 393–398, Association for Computing Machinery, Stanford, California, USA, 2017, ISBN: 9781450349215.
Abstract | Links | BibTeX | Tags: adhd, brain-computer interfacing, children, design, neurofeedback, sound
@inproceedings{10.1145/3078072.3084299,
title = {Exploring and Evaluating Sound for Helping Children Self-Regulate with a Brain-Computer Application},
author = {Elgin-Skye McLaren and Alissa N. Antle},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1145/3078072.3084299},
doi = {10.1145/3078072.3084299},
isbn = {9781450349215},
year = {2017},
date = {2017-01-01},
booktitle = {Proceedings of the 2017 Conference on Interaction Design and Children},
pages = {393–398},
publisher = {Association for Computing Machinery},
address = {Stanford, California, USA},
series = {IDC '17},
abstract = {Children in North America are more likely to suffer from attentional challenges than any other mental health issue. Studies suggest that neurofeedback treatments may be useful for helping these children learn to self-regulate. Applying neurofeedback treatments in real-world, school settings poses a challenge, however, as these environments are often noisy and filled with distractions. The addition of ambient audio to neurofeedback systems may help reduce these disruptions. Further, research suggests that certain auditory treatments, such as binaural beats and white noise, may improve children's focus and aid memory recall. In the following paper we present the theories supporting this idea as well as a mixed methods framework for evaluating whether sound can help children focus while learning to self-regulate using a neurofeedback system. Specifically, we wish to investigate whether these treatments may help children (1) achieve an attentive state sooner and (2) maintain an attentive state for longer, when compared to the same system without sound.},
keywords = {adhd, brain-computer interfacing, children, design, neurofeedback, sound},
pubstate = {published},
tppubtype = {inproceedings}
}
Children in North America are more likely to suffer from attentional challenges than any other mental health issue. Studies suggest that neurofeedback treatments may be useful for helping these children learn to self-regulate. Applying neurofeedback treatments in real-world, school settings poses a challenge, however, as these environments are often noisy and filled with distractions. The addition of ambient audio to neurofeedback systems may help reduce these disruptions. Further, research suggests that certain auditory treatments, such as binaural beats and white noise, may improve children's focus and aid memory recall. In the following paper we present the theories supporting this idea as well as a mixed methods framework for evaluating whether sound can help children focus while learning to self-regulate using a neurofeedback system. Specifically, we wish to investigate whether these treatments may help children (1) achieve an attentive state sooner and (2) maintain an attentive state for longer, when compared to the same system without sound.