Effectiveness Of Computer-based Training Research Articles

Effectiveness of Computer-Based Training on Toothbrush Skills of Patients Treated With Crowns: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

This study was conducted to assess plaque removal skills in patients with fixed dental prostheses (FDP), and effectiveness of computer-based training (CBT) of different brushing techniques (Fones versus Bass technique in their common modifications). Ninety-three patients with FDP were randomly allocated to one of three training groups: 1) C (control group); 2) F (Fones technique group); and 3) B (Bass technique group). All patients received CBT of the basics of toothbrushing. Group C received no further instructions while groups F and B received additional CBT of the modified Fones or the modified Bass technique, respectively. Plaque levels were assessed immediately after patients had been asked to perform oral hygiene to the best of their abilities. Prior to training, persistent plaque deposits were found at 80% of marginal sites of natural teeth immediately after patients had performed oral hygiene. Considerably fewer plaque deposits were found on FDP (43%). No significant group differences were observed 6 and 12 weeks after training, either for natural teeth or for FDP (all P >0.05). Plaque removal skills are low in patients with FDP. Apparently, they do not profit from CBT of the techniques studied here. Studies observing their actual brushing behavior should be conducted to elucidate reasons for their deficits and to explore why CBT does not work in this group of patients.

NOCOA+: Multimodal Computer-Based Training for Social and Communication Skills

SUMMARY Non-verbal communication incorporating visual, audio, and contextual information is important to make sense of and navigate the social world. Individuals who have trouble with social situations often have difficulty recognizing these sorts of non-verbal social signals. In this article, we propose a training tool NOCOA+ (Non-verbal COmmuniation for Autism plus) that uses utterances in visual and audio modalities in nonverbal communication training. We describe the design of NOCOA+ ,a nd further perform an experimental evaluation in which we examine its potential as a tool for computer-based training of non-verbal communication skills for people with social and communication difficulties. In a series of four experiments, we investigated 1) the effect of temporal context on the ability to recognize social signals in testing context, 2) the effect of modality of presentation of social stimulus on ability to recognize non-verbal information, 3) the correlation between autistic traits as measured by the autism spectrum quotient (AQ) and non-verbal behavior recognition skills measured by NOCOA+ ,4 ) the effectiveness of computer-based training in improving social skills. We found that context information was helpful for recognizing non-verbal behaviors, and the effect of modality was different. The results also showed a significant relationship between the AQ communication and socialization scores and non-verbal communication skills, and that social skills were significantly improved through computer-based training.