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These proceedings contain the papers of the 18th International Conference on Cognition and Exploratory Learning in the Digital Age (CELDA 2021), held virtually, due to an exceptional situation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, from October 13-15, 2021, and organized by the International Association for Development of the Information Society (IADIS). The CELDA conference aims to address the main issues concerned with evolving learning processes and supporting pedagogies and applications in the digital age. There have been advances in both cognitive psychology and computing that have affected the educational arena. The convergence of these two disciplines is increasing at a fast pace and affecting academia and professional practice in many ways. The CELDA 2021 Conference received 68 submissions from more than 21 countries. Out of the papers submitted, 34 were accepted as full papers for an acceptance rate of 50%; 16 were accepted as short papers, and 2 were accepted as reflection papers. In addition to the presentation of full, short and reflection papers, the conference also includes one keynote presentation from an internationally distinguished researcher: Dr. David Scaradozzi, Department of Information Engineering, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Italy. [Individual papers are indexed in ERIC.]

Previous meta-analyses highlight the role of executive functions (EF), encompassing working memory, task-switching, and inhibition, in reading comprehension, but have not demarcated its role in decoding, defined as use of orthographic patterns to access oral pronunciations. According to the dual-route model, decoding involves parallel activation of lexical and non-lexical (grapheme-to-phoneme) routes, which places demands on EF. We used multivariate meta-analyses to examine associations between decoding, assessed via nonword and word reading tasks, and EF across 51 studies involving children (128 effect size estimates, N = 18,699 participants, mean age 10.2 years, range 5.0-14.9). Results indicated significant small-moderate correlations between each EF construct and decoding task (Fisher's z ranged from 0.24 to 0.36), with age moderating some associations.

The article presents a study that examines how television exposure at young ages harm children's executive function (EF). It mentions that achievement of EF is regarded as critical in child development and related to a range of concurrent and long-term outcomes, including social behavior and academic achievement.

Reading comprehension (RC) is a complex, dynamic process by which readers interact with text to construct meaning. It relies on word level reading skills such as vocabulary and reading fluency, as well as on higher level-skills, such as literal comprehension, simile comprehension, inference generation, and comprehension monitoring or control. So far, there is limited evidence on the relationship between young children's reading comprehension and executive functions (EF), namely complex functions that support an individual's goal-directed behavior. There are more studies relating children's reading comprehension performance with their working memory capacity, allowing the concurrent active maintenance and manipulation-processing of information in the mind. Most studies however, have involved general comprehension assessments, rather than measures of the above mentioned higher-level processes. The present study aims at shedding more light on this area, by examining the relative contribution of key executive functions (inhibition, updating, cognitive flexibility) and working memory to reading comprehension skills in children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Executive function is a set of mental processes commonly linked with the activation of the brain's prefrontal cortex. While many studies have focused on EF in adulthood, the development of EF in children is yet to be understood. This paper proposes a new approach for understanding children's reactions during EF tasks by mapping their EEG signals onto the 2D valence-arousal affective space model. Brain signals of ten pre-school children aged between 4–6 years (male: 5; female: 5) were collected while they play the standardized version of the Dimensional Change Card Sort. Behavioral results in terms of percentage of correct responses and response time did not vary significantly across gender. Emotion mapping using the valence-arousal model showed that boys tend to be consistent in their emotion during pre-switch and post-switch tasks. The emotion of girls, however, tends to shift towards neutral state during the post-switch test regardless of their initial emotions in the pre-switch phase. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Reading comprehension (RC) is a complex, dynamic process by which readers interact with text to construct meaning. It relies on lower level skills such as word decoding, fluency reading and vocabulary skills and also on higher level-skills such as inference making, literal comprehension and comprehension monitoring. Many research studies have found relationship between reading comprehension and executive functions (Sesma et al, 2009, Cain & Oakhill, 2007, etc). Executive functions (EF) are a highly complex, interdependent group of abilities that are involved in governing an individual's goaldirected behavior (Carroll et al, 2007). The present study aims at shedding more light on this area, by examining the relative contribution of four executive functions, inhibition, updating, cognitive flexibility and working memory to reading comprehension in children). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Life success depends increasingly on the mastery of executive functions such as, working memory, shifting, and inhibiting. Executive functions, are cognitive processes that regulate behaviour, also influencing and predicting the development of other cognitive skills (Van der van et al, 2012). These functions are processes that regulate one's thoughts or behaviour. This paper will provide an overview of evidence regarding the development of executive functions in children, including key findings discussing their implications for children's learning, and indicating issues that merit further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the prevalence of digital interaction within the Generation Alpha, this study focuses on the digital wellbeing of elementary school-aged children in South Korea. By taking into account the multi-faceted nature, this study frames the issue that exists within children's digital wellbeing as a complex problem and aims to have a better comprehensive understanding of the system using a designerly and systems thinking approach. Thus, this study conducts a Systematic literature review and thematic analysis to get grasp of the current situation which then is translated using a systems thinking-based visualization tool to convey the causal relationships that exist within the system. Therefore, the outcome of this study presents a concept map that consolidates the findings to communicate a holistic perspective of children's digital wellbeing which can be used in design activities and decision-making processes which contribute to future design solutions and conversations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Real-time computer feedback systems (CFS) have been shown to impact the communication of neurologically typical individuals. Promising new research appears to suggest the same for the vocalization of low functioning children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The distinction between speech-like versus non-speech-like vocalizations has rarely, if ever, been addressed in the HCI community. This distinction is critical as we strive to most effectively and efficiently facilitate speech development in children with ASD, while simultaneously helping decrease vocalizations that do not facilitate positive social interactions. This paper provided an extension of Hailpern et al. in 2009 by examining the influence of a computerized feedback system on both the speech-like and non-speech-like vocalizations of five nonverbal children with ASD. Results were largely positive, in that some form of computerized feedback was able to differentially facilitate speech-like vocalizations relative to nonspeech-like vocalizations in 4 of the 5 children. The main contribution of this work is in highlighting the importance of distinguishing between speech-like versus nonspeech-like vocalizations in the design of feedback systems focused on facilitating speech in similar populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]