Mikel Ostiz, PhD student of the ICS, awarded a grant by the Caja Navarra Foundation for research on dyslexia in the U.S.
His project, which he carries out in the group 'Mind-brain', consists of the development and assessment of a game to help people with dyslexia through rhythm.
PHOTO: Manuel Castells
Mikel Ostiz, PhD student of the group 'Mente-cerebro' del Institute for Culture and Societyhas received a financial aid from the call for scholarship applications for Excellence of the Caja Navarra Foundation. Thanks to it, he will do research at the Human Computer Interaction Institute, Carnegie Mellow University (Pittsburg, USA), from March 1 to August 31, 2018.
His is one of the six awarded in the category 'mobility for programs of study of research of doctorate'. Through this call, Fundación Caja Navarra tries to encourage the search for excellence in different fields, as well as the promotion of talents that can give an important future projection to the region of Navarra.
Specifically, Mikel is developing a video game that teaches children to keep the tempo to improve rhythm and look for differences in images to improve visual attention. It is called 'Jellys' and it will involve activities in different "worlds" to which the characters, a boy or a girl explorer, will travel. The characters will have to find and capture the jellys, small smiling gelatinous creatures.
An example of a rhythm training game is that children must capture the jellys by tapping the screen according to a specific beat. For visual attention, children should find the right jelly (with their eyes open or closed, looking to the right or to the left...).
The next steps of the thesis include two evaluations. The first one is a pilot study to measure mainly the usability of the game (if it is easy and intuitive). In May 2017, two focus groups were carried out with two groups of children and adolescents from association Navarra de Dislexia, one from 9 to 11 years old and the other from 12 to 15. "It has helped us to gather opinions and experiences," says Mikel.
Subsequently, the reading rate before and after using the game will be measured for both children with and without dyslexia.
Mikel Ostiz is carrying out this thesis thanks to the group 'Mente-cerebro' of the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) of the University of Navarra, the Basque Center on Cognition Brain and Language (BCBL) and the University of Vic.