Manuscript received October 20, 2022; revised November 14, 2022; accepted December 19, 2022.
Abstract—Today, the effective use of technological tools is a
fundamental aspect of learning. Nevertheless, in Italy’s
education system the integration of digital technologies in a
pedagogically meaningful way is still not very widespread,
especially in non-compulsory levels, such as preschool.
Integration of digital technologies as early as preschool could be
useful to support child development, especially for fostering
executive functions (EFs). These play an important role in the
daily life of all children, whether or not they have special
education needs (SEN), such as coping with attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms. This paper reports a
pilot study in which a play-based intervention is adopted that
combines interaction with both educational apps and analogical
materials. The main aim of the study is to investigate whether
application of this intervention promotes the development of
EFs and a decrease in ADHD symptoms (inattention and
impulsivity/hyperactivity), as perceived by teachers and parents.
The results show significant improvements in various EFs
components and, in the experimental group, ADHD symptoms
seem to decrease, especially in those children considered at risk
by their teachers and parents. This suggests that the
digital-analogical intervention can be implemented in preschool
as an innovative way to improve cognitive abilities and as an
early strategy for children with ADHD symptoms.
Index Terms—ADHD symptoms, educational apps, executive
functions, preschool
The authors are with the National Research Council of Italy, Institute for
Educational Technology, Genoa, Italy.
*Correspondence: panesi@itd.cnr.it (S.P.)
Cite: Sabrina Panesi* and Lucia Ferlino, "A Digital-Analogical Intervention Program Following a Play-Based Approach for Preschoolers: The Effects on Executive Functions and ADHD Symptoms in a Pilot Study," International Journal of Information and Education Technology vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 604-613, 2023.
Copyright © 2023 by the authors. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited (CC BY 4.0).