The Use of Virtual and Computational Technologies in the Psychomotor and Cognitive Development of Children with Down Syndrome: A Systematic Literature Review.

Elvio Boato,Mário Filho,Eduardo Moresi,Rosana Tristão,Geiziane Melo,Carla Lourenço

doi:10.3390/ijerph19052955

Abstract

Individuals with Down syndrome (DS) have numerous comorbidities due to trisomy 21. However, virtual reality-based therapy (VRT) has been used nowadays as a learning and visual motor tool in order to facilitate the development and learning process of this group. The aim of this article was to carry out an integrative review of the literature on the use of virtual and computational technologies in the stimulation of children with DS. A search was carried out according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) through single key words or their combinations using AND or OR operators: “Down syndrome” AND (“development” OR “cognition” OR “visomotor” OR “digital game” OR “virtual reality”). Eventually, 18 articles were included in our review. The games used in the research were able to stimulate, through the visual field, global motor skills, balance, body scheme and spatial organization, in addition to the learning of mathematical concepts, in order to directly influence the autonomous life activities, language skills, social skills and educational aspects of people with DS. Electronic games contribute to the teaching-learning relationship and stimulate neuropsychomotor and cognitive functions and development in children with DS.

Highlights

The results show that Video Modeling can be an effective and fast technique to teach the communication system by exchanging figures
To structure the findings of this study, the following sections represent the categories of main findings that are described as: the motor development of children with Down syndrome (DS); the development of communication in children with DS in the context of infocommunication, i.e., combining cognitive informatics [39]; and the use of electronic games for the assessment and stimulation of children with DS
Several studies on the development of children with DS point to the fact that their comorbidities lead to a delay in general development in psychomotor aspects, even considering that the development follows the same characteristics of people without the syndrome [20,21,58,63–66]

Summary

Introduction

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Down syndrome (DS) is the most frequently diagnosed chromosomal disorder in newborns [1–3], formerly scientifically described by John Langdon Down in the second half of the 19th century as “Mongolian family” and “Mongol idiot” [4] based on their innate physical characteristics. The cause of DS was only discovered in 1959 by Jerome Lejeune, when he realized that individuals with the syndrome had an extra chromosome in their karyotype, totally or partially accompanying chromosome 21. DS became understood as an imbalance in the chromosomal constitution of chromosome

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Results

Conclusion