The Effect of Chucky & Nelly Cognitive Game on Hot and Cold Executive Function Skills in order to Develop School Readiness Skills in Preschool Children

Executive functions have played a key role in early childhood and have been known as one of the predictors of school readiness. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of Chucky & Nelly educational-cognitive game in developing cold and hot executive function skills in preschool children and to compare the two groups in terms of their school readiness skills.

The present study was of a quasi-experimental study design in the form of a pre-test and post-test with a control group. The statistical population of the study included all preschool children in Ahvaz in the academic year of 2019-2020; 204 of which were selected through a multi-stage cluster random sampling and randomly divided into experimental (n=102) and control (n=102) groups. The intervention plan was performed on the experimental group in ten 30-minutes-sessions for 1 month. In order to gather data, the following instruments were used: Cold Executive Function Questionnaires: Go/No-Go Task (Hofman, 1948), Box Task (Kessels & Postma, 2018), and Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (Grant & Berg, 1948), Hot Executive Function: 3-items Emotional Flexible Item Selection Task (3-item EM-FIST) (Marcus et al., 2016), and Delay Discounting Test (Nejati et al., 2019), and School Readiness: The Bracken School Readiness Assessment Test: Third Edition (Bracken & Panter, 2009), and Social-Emotional School Readiness Scale (Bustin, 2007).

The results of the analysis of covariance exhibited that Chucky & Nelly game has affected the improvement of cold (working memory, inhibition, and cognitive flexibility) and hot (delayed gratification and affective flexibility) executive function skills (p<0/01) and the results of comparing the mean scores of the two groups in terms of school readiness showed that the experimental group have obtained a higher score (academically from 17.56 to 25.17 and social-emotionally 56.76 to 75.06).

Using group games, especially at preschool age, which is a critical stage in the development of hot and cold executive functions, by stimulating children’s senses through playing with peers and using a real-life situation such as playing in a preschool environment can help children to generalize cognitive developments, at least in other similar situations or tasks, as well as, executive functions that have been known as important predictors of school readiness skills.