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Eye-tracking Working Memory Training in Children and Youth With Severe Cerebral Palsy

NCT06918379 · Status: ACTIVE_NOT_RECRUITING · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 5

Last updated 2025-04-13

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

People with severe cerebral palsy (CP) who are nonverbal and unable to control conventional computer interfaces due to the severe limitations in hand control benefit from eye-tracking technology as access method to Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) devices and to computers for education and leisure. Research has put forward the large demands that the use of AAC puts on working memory (WM), defined as our ability to temporarily store information that is no longer perceptually present, allowing us to manipulate it for meaningful goal-directed behaviour.

People with CP show significant WM deficits, which affect learning capacities and academic achievement, including impaired language and reading comprehension, and arithmetic difficulties. Cogmed WM training (CWMT) is a computerized software with a great potential to boost WM capacity and overall cognitive functioning. Its effectiveness is influenced by the theory of neuroplasticity due to repeated mental tasks.

To date, no prior study investigated the effectiveness of CWMT in children and youth with severe CP who rely on eye-tracking technology for daily-life functioning. This is the first trial that aims to explore the impact of a 5-week CWMT on WM capacity and its near-transfer effect (trained and untrained WM tasks), far-transfer effect (other cognitive abilities, quality of eye movements and behaviour) and retention 3-months post intervention.

Conditions

  • Cerebral Palsy

Interventions

DEVICE

Cogmed Working Memory Training (CWMT)

This is an intensive, eye-tracking working memory (WM) training in school-aged children and young adults with severe cerebral palsy. The Cogmed Working Memory Training (CWMT) software was used as intervention software. The CWMT is adaptive, meaning, it becomes either progressively more difficult or less difficult depending on participants' performance. When a participant completes a trial correctly, the level will increase for the next trial. When a participant makes an error, the next trial will either remain on the same level or decrease in level depending on the type of error made. The CWMT program thus adapts on an individualized basis to participant's performance, allowing for training to occur at or close to an individual's highest capacity. Participants with severe cerebral palsy, users of eye-tracking technology, trained for \~30 minutes, 5 days a week for 5 weeks, i.e. 25 training sessions in total.

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • KU Leuven

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Elegast Monbaliu, PhD · KU Leuven

Study Design

Allocation
NA
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
NONE
Model
SINGLE_GROUP

Eligibility

Min Age
7 Years
Max Age
21 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2024-11-04
Primary Completion
2024-12-31
Completion
2025-04-30

Countries

  • Belgium

Study Locations

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT06918379 on ClinicalTrials.gov