Led by the University of Valencia (Spain), EMPOWER is a new European interdisciplinary research project that will develop and deploy a unique technological learning platform to enhance the personalized education of children with neurodevelopmental conditions. Its main objective is to empower teachers to better support children in schools regarding their emotional and behavioural difficulties and ultimately improve their quality of life. Partners of the project have met at the IRTIC institute in Valencia this week to kick off its three-year work programme.
The members of the EMPOWER consortium held their first meeting on Tuesday 18th and Wednesday 19th October at the IRTIC facilities, in Valencia (Spain). During the meeting, the participating entities have discussed technical issues to be developed, the preparation of the necessary reports and the promotion of the initiative.
Neurodevelopmental conditions affect approximately 15% of children aged 3 to 17 years. These children can have difficulties with language and speech, motor skills, behaviour, memory, learning, or other neurological functions. These difficulties can have a significant impact on their learning, access to education, and in turn social inclusion. Children with Neurodevelopmental conditions can thus greatly benefit from education support tailored to their needs.
The recent pandemic has triggered a strong push to invest in technology-augmented education while highlighting major gaps and challenges in the area. Many questions currently remain open, including what technological abilities are useful in education according to specific needs, how can they be deployed, what are the training needs, and what public policies should govern this issue.
Over the next three years, EMPOWER will contribute to answering these questions by (1) developing novel technological support for the education of children with neurodevelopmental conditions, (2) developing adequate training for educational staff, and (3) issuing recommendations for the future regarding the potential and limitations of technology-augmented education to inform future developments.
EMPOWER will thus create a novel educational platform based on new paradigms from psychology that suggest that Executive Function and Emotional Self-Regulation are two key sets of skills to target in the educational support for students with Neurodevelopmental conditions. The educational platform will be co-created by all relevant stakeholders and will facilitate the improvement of these key skills in children. It is expected that by using a game-based approach, children will improve their learning and emotional skills, better integrate into the educational system, and improve their quality of life. The platform efficacy will be tested and evaluated in school settings according to the strict standards of a randomized clinical trial.
In addition to technological advances, the lessons learned from the development and deployment of this platform will provide valuable insights into the needs and possibilities for training teachers in the use of new technologies as well as input into future policies governing technology in education, including, in particular refined ethical frameworks.
Leading the EMPOWER consortium, the University of Valencia (Spain) will coordinate the transnational team made of a range of leading experts in their respective fields including from Radboud University (The Netherlands), Babeş-Bolyai University, the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca and the company ITDATA TELECOM (Romania), the Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, INESC-ID and ISCTE – University Institute of Lisbon (Portugal), as well as Autism-Europe (Belgium). The work of the consortium is co-funded by the Horizon Europe programme of the European Union.