Performance Analysis in Down Syndrome on Mobile Phone
Condition: Down Syndrome
MeSH terms: Down Syndrome; Syndrome
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      The game Marble Maze Classic® will be used, in which the participants have to move the mobile
      phone to conduct a virtual marble through a maze design. The investigators will evaluate 100
      individuals (50 with Down Syndrome-DS and 50 with typical development-TD) and divide both
      with DS and TD into group 1 and 2, where each group consists of 25 participants, with group 2
      using a maze design totally opposite to group 1.
    

Detailed description: 
      The game Marble Maze Classic® will be used, in which the participants have to move the mobile
      phone to conduct a virtual marble through a maze design. The investigators will evaluate 100
      individuals (50 with Down Syndrome-DS and 50 with typical development-TD) and divide both
      with DS and TD into group 1 and 2, where each group consists of 25 participants, with group 2
      using a maze design totally opposite to group 1.

      Participants from both SD and TD will be divided into two subgroups: Group 1 (n = 50,
      consisting of 25 participants in TD and 25 participants in SD) and Group 2 (n = 50,
      consisting 25 participants in TD and 25 participants in SD), with the design of the maze for
      group 2 totally opposite to that of group 1 in all stages of the experiment. The use of
      opposite mazes is necessary to verify that the sequence of movements of the maze path does
      not influence performance.

      To maintain the characteristics of random sampling, where each participant has an equal
      chance to participate in the groups, The investigators used simple probabilistic random
      sampling, by conducting the drawing on paper.

      PROCEDURES

      Individuals will be positioned comfortably in a chair set according to the size necessary, as
      well as a footrest, so as to stay properly positioned to enable the execution of the task.

      Before starting the task, the functioning of the game will be verbally explained, along with
      a demonstration made by the examiner. The examiner will state that the goal of the game is to
      get the marble to the end of the maze in the shortest possible time through movements up,
      down and sideways (supination and pronation of the forearm, flexion and extension of the
      wrist and fingers). Participants will perform all attempts with the dominant hand (except in
      intermanual transfer phase) and this task will be repeated several times according to the
      design of the experiment. In each experiment phase (acquisition, retention and transfer) the
      execution time will be noted of the entire path from the beginning of the maze until the end
      point, and in each phase this path has to be performed by a specific amount of repetitions.

      To try to match the difficulty of the task, the mazes are customized with paths that require
      eight basic movements for the virtual marble to reach the target, with two movements of
      forearm pronation, two supination, two wrist flexion and two extension.

      In the design of the learning protocol, the participants have to perform 30 repetitions of
      the maze task for the acquisition phase with the dominant hand, each group with their own
      maze. After these 30 repetitions, there was a 5-minute rest period in which the participant
      is not in contact with the task. Then, 5 repetitions will be performed in the retention phase
      with the same maze acquisition. For the transfer phase, the participants will perform 15
      repetitions divided into 3 blocks of 5 attempts using different maze designs:

        -  Transfer A: a maze with the path in a different layout to the acquisition (five
           repetitions);

        -  Transfer B: the same acquisition maze, however carried out with non-dominant hand (five
           repetitions);

        -  Transfer 3: the same acquisition maze with the start-end point of the path reversed
           (five repetitions).
    

Intervention name(s): Down Syndrome Group 1; Down Syndrome Group 2; Typical Development Group 1; Typical Development Group 2
Intervention type(s): Behavioral; Behavioral; Behavioral; Behavioral
Intervention description(s): Acquisition and retention phase on maze A, transfer on maze B and C.; Acquisition and retention phase on maze C, transfer on maze A and B.; Control group. Acquisition and retention phase on maze A, transfer on maze B and C.; Control group. Acquisition and retention phase on maze C, transfer on maze A and B.
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Supportive Care
Keywords: Down syndrome; motor skills; physiotherapy; mobile telephone; exposure to virtual reality therapy