Current events

The UOC is to design an interactive and personalized program to make it easier for children to learn to read
  girl reading computer

The main objective is to design an interactive and personalized computer program to improve phonological awareness in children aged between three and seven years old (Photo: Annie Spratt, Unsplash)

11/01/2023
Pablo Ramos

Researchers at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) will develop an interactive program to contribute to the development of speech and language in children through the use of new technologies, body movements, artificial intelligence and personalized content.


This program will be a tool for teaching staff and other professionals involved in the education of children, for instance special education teachers, speech therapists, psychologists and educators.


It is estimated that around 7% of children have language disorders such as dyslexia, and consequently they may also have difficulties in phonological awareness, which can limit their academic performance.


Early intervention helps to improve and strengthen the initial learning of reading and writing.

Learning to read is one of the most important skills that children learn at an early age, and this is fundamental for their academic development and success in school. But in some cases, it is a major challenge and poses a number of difficulties for some children. Moreover, children with good spoken language skills learn to read better than those who have difficulties.

In this context, a team of researchers from the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya is going to develop an interactive and personalized programme, called PICOFON, to contribute to the development of children's speech and graphic recognition of words.

"PICOFON's main objective is to design, create, evaluate and implement an interactive and personalized computer program to improve phonological awareness in children aged between three and seven years old," said Llorenç Andreu Barrachina, full professor in the Faculty of Psychology and Education Sciences, researcher in the GRECIL group at the UOC's eHealth Center and head of the project.

Phonological awareness is the capacity and ability that allows children to identify, recognize, differentiate and assimilate the sounds and phonemes that make up words. In other words, it is a skill that enables them to recognize and analyse the different units of language such as syllables, intrasyllabic units and phonemes, which is fundamental for transforming written words into spoken language and, therefore, for reading and comprehension.

"The level of phonological awareness in early childhood education is a particularly important predictor of reading fluency later in primary education, and its development from very early stages of childhood education is beneficial for learning to read later on," said the researcher.

 

New technologies and personalization for development

PICOFON will include innovative features such as the implementation of different disruptive technologies, the use of artificial intelligence to personalize activities for each user and the integration of an image capture device. This is intended to encourage interactivity between the user and the program by integrating body movements and manual movements with activities that help improve phonological awareness. This will be accompanied by an ongoing analysis of the project's functionalities in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the program in terms of phonological awareness.

"The main innovations of the project are that it integrates practice based on evidence on phonological awareness intervention with interactive work and artificial intelligence to personalize learning," said Andreu, who also pointed out that the integration of human movement in a cognitive learning task promotes learning due to its cognitive and physiological effects. "Activities that combine body movements and spoken language activities provide a good learning environment for children, with advanced technological developments that incorporate artificial intelligence to optimize their functionalities," added the expert.

At present, there are no precise data on the prevalence of children with these specific characteristics linked to difficulties in phonological awareness. But it is estimated that language disorders such as dyslexia affect around 7% of the population. "All children who experience this type of language disorder are also likely to have difficulties in phonological awareness, and early intervention in phonological awareness improves and strengthens the initial learning of reading and writing," Andreu said.

 

A tool to complement learning and education

Thus, by applying different technologies and methodologies, PICOFON allows educational content and exercises to be personalized for each user so that they can learn at their own pace and with the activities best suited to their needs and characteristics. In this way, this project can complement the tasks carried out in the school environment for teaching staff and other professionals involved in the education of children, for instance special education teachers, speech therapists, psychologists and educators. "We want PICOFON to have a major impact in the field of education and speech therapy and for the program to establish itself as a fundamental tool for working on phonological awareness," stressed Andreu.

The results of this study will be published in scientific journals and presented at a number of national and international conferences on educational technology and on language and reading acquisition and difficulties. The social dissemination of the program is also being planned, as well as participation in several trade fairs in the educational and speech therapy sector and the creation of its own website. "The aim is to show all the functionalities of the PICOFON program in the environments and sectors in which it is of interest and can be applied," concluded Andreu.

 

This project has been funded by the European Union's Next Generation EU programme, through the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation's programme of strategic projects aimed at the environmental transition and the digital transition.

This UOC research supports Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 4, Quality Education, and 10, Reduced Inequalities.

 

UOC R&I

The UOC's research and innovation (R&I) is helping overcome pressing challenges faced by global societies in the 21st century by studying interactions between technology and human & social sciences with a specific focus on the network society, e-learning and e-health.

Over 500 researchers and 51 research groups work in the UOC's seven faculties, its eLearning Research programme and its two research centres: the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) and the eHealth Center (eHC).

The university also develops online learning innovations at its eLearning Innovation Center (eLinC), as well as UOC community entrepreneurship and knowledge transfer via the Hubbik platform.

Open knowledge and the goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development serve as strategic pillars for the UOC's teaching, research and innovation. More information: research.uoc.edu.

UOC experts

Photograph of Llorenç Andreu Barrachina

Llorenç Andreu Barrachina

Professor in the Psychology and Education Sciences Department
Director of the university master's degree in Learning Disabilities and Language Disorders

Expert in: Language acquisition and development; learning disabilities; language disorders.

Knowledge area: Educational psychology.

View file