It is with great honour to announce that AHA has been nominated for the Auggie Awards at AWE Europe!
What is AHA?
ADHD Augmented (AHA) is a pilot project that investigates the efficacy of Augmented Reality (AR) in improving the reading and spelling abilities of children with ADHD. The AHA projects involves the integration of a series of AR objects from WordsWorthLearning (WWL), an online literacy programme that has been proven to reduce and resolve reading and spelling problems such as Dyslexia, and the Web Health Application for ADHD Monitoring (WHAAM). The integration process produced the AHA web-based service that allows parents, teachers, and other professionals to monitor the behaviour of children engaged in the reading and spelling activities provided by the system.
ADHD
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a neurobiological disorder characterised by inattention, hyperactivity and impulsivity. In Ireland, 3-5% of children have ADHD. 30-40% of children are referred to CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) for ADHD. Children with ADHD typically have difficulties in maintaining focused attention on cognitive stimuli and often go off-task. As a consequence, their motivation, academic engagement and outcomes are generally poorer than those reported for other children.
Recruitment
We have a total of 124 participants from all over Ireland that were recruited by HADD Ireland. The children are randomly assigned to three groups:
- WWL literacy programme enhanced by AR contents
- WWL literacy programme without AR contents
- One group without any WWL intervention during the pilot
(Children in the third group will be provided with one-year free access to the WWL literacy programme at the end of the pilot)
Augmented Reality
The participants are provided a unique AR WWL marker that they use to visualise the AR objects by using the camera on their mobile device. Interactive Vowel and Consonant charts are used throughout the WWL programme. AR elements are present on the Vowel charts and the user can click/touch the icon (ex. bee icon) and it will open a camera window. The user then points the camera on the WWL marker to view the AR object. Particular reading and spelling rules have special AR flashcards available in specific levels and modules of the WWL programme where the user can “View in AR”.
Parent and Teacher Access
Parent/Teacher of the participants have access to the AHA Dashboard where they can have a more in depth look on the child’s progress. The parent/teacher has access to the WWL account of the child to check their progress. The Case Data is where the results of the child’s literacy assessment can be viewed (NARA II and Vernon tests), and results from Pre-Assessment (before AHA intervention) and Post-Assessment (after AHA intervention). Observations is where the child’s off-task behaviour is recorded. The Data Analytics is where an overview of the child’s progress is visualised using charts.
AHA’s main research questions
- Do these technologies have an effect on the reading and spelling of students with ADHD?
- Do these technologies have any effect on the learning engagement of ADHD students? (i.e. Does gamification of spelling via augmented objects encourage children’s concentration?)
This project will be launching in October to all the participants.
For more information contact: aha@ucd.ie
Published on: 13 Sep 2018