Memorization of daily routines by children with Down syndrome assisted by a playful virtual environment.
A short VR game about daily routines doubled memorization scores for kids with Down syndrome compared to picture cards.
01Research in Context
What this study did
OBellon-Harn et al. (2020) built a playful computer world called "Nossa Vida." Kids moved through a virtual house and practiced morning, school, and bedtime steps.
The team randomly split children with Down syndrome into two groups. One group played the game; the other got picture cards and verbal drills.
After four weeks they tested how many routine steps each child could remember without help.
What they found
Children who played the game scored almost twice as high as the control group. The difference was large and very unlikely due to chance.
Every game child remembered more steps in the correct order, both at home and at school.
How this fits with other research
McQuaid et al. (2024) later showed immersive VR beats flat-screen training for adults with ID learning waste-sorting. Together the studies say: headset VR > 2-D for life skills across ages.
Park et al. (2023) ran a similar RCT with a VR cycling game for kids with developmental delays. They found mixed results: locomotor skills improved, ball skills did not. The contrast reminds us VR works best when the digital task mirrors the exact real skill we want.
Fallea et al. (2025) also used VR to teach brushing and flossing to children with ASD. Both RCTs beat traditional instruction, showing the method holds across diagnoses and routines.
Why it matters
If you teach daily living skills to learners with Down syndrome, swap some table-top drills for a short VR run. One 15-minute game session before real practice can double what they remember. No extra staff, no extra cost after the headset, and the kids ask to play again.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
A child with Down syndrome, like any other child, may benefit from interacting with memory stimuli, but needs additional support and help. The use of special teaching methods, which add playfulness and use of the computer, can enhance the memory processes of these children. In this work, we present the virtual environment "Nossa Vida (Our Life)", which was developed to assist children with Down syndrome to memorize action sequences of their daily routine. A daily routine memorization test (DRMT), consisting of a weekly reminder of typical daily routines completed by the children and parents, was performed before (pre-test) and after (post-test) the intervention. The work involved a multidisciplinary team and assessed the effectiveness of the test performed by 30 children with Down syndrome from APAE, a special education school for children with intellectual disabilities in São Paulo, Brazil. The children were separated into two groups (Experimental - GE and Control - GC) with homogeneity and normality of the data. Two hypotheses were tested in this study: H0 and H1, where: H0 = There is no statistical difference between memorizing daily tasks between individuals with Down syndrome who used our ludic virtual environment and those who used the conventional memory method.H1 = There is a difference between the group of subjects with Down Syndrome who used our virtual game environment and the group that did not use it in relation to memorizing the daily task. This produces t = -14.98 and p <0.0001, with H1 being accepted. The results showed that the EG presented significance in relation to the CG and the evolution mean of the children in the EG was 81.82% higher. According to experts (psychologist and pedagogue) from APAE and parents, the playful activities implemented in this virtual environment have been of great interest to children, who had fun, tested hypotheses and questioned them about the sequences of actions performed in their routine daily.
, 2020 · doi:10.1038/s41598-020-60014-5