**2. Materials and Methods**

We used the Scrum process [3] in this work, so a total of 9 sprints of 1, 2, 3, or 4 weeks were planned, depending on the tasks to be addressed and the availability of the authors.

**Citation:** Nogueiras, P.; Castro, P.M.; Dapena, A. PreLectO: An App for Cognitive Stimulation through Games in Early Childhood. *Eng. Proc.* **2021**, *7*, 46. https://doi.org/10.3390/ engproc2021007046


Academic Editors: Joaquim de Moura, Marco A. González, Javier Pereira and Manuel G. Penedo

Published: 22 October 2021

**Publisher's Note:** MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

The total execution time was 24 weeks. In addition, this software methodology was combined with another work methodology known as service-learning [4], which provides a service to society while students acquire the necessary skills. To this end, we collaborated with a non-profit organization in the area of A Coruña, which serves, among other groups, children with learning difficulties.

Regarding material resources, an HP OMEN 15-ce0xx laptop with an Intel i7-7700HQ 2.8 GHz processor and Windows 10 was used for the development of this work. In addition, 4 mobile phones (two Xiaomi and two Samsung) and 2 tablets (one Samsung and one BQ) were used to test the developed *app* on physical devices. As for software resources, we used the following in this work: Android Studio, the official development environment for Android; IntelliJ, an integrated development environment with a "premium" version available for free through a license provided by the University of A Coruña; Kotlin, an opensource language used by Google for Android *app* development; Android, currently the most widespread open-source operating system on mobile devices; Firebase, a Google cloud platform for project creation and synchronization; Cloud Firestore, a NoSQL database hosted in the cloud; Firebase Authentication, for authentication services; ARASAAC pictograms, for accessible communication; Picasso, an open-source library for Kotlin that allows the downloading of images from a URL and uploading them to the *app* interface in real time; AnyChart, a library for JavaScript and Kotlin that represent statistical data in a wide variety of types of interactive graphics; and finally, LaTeX and Git as text composition and version control software, respectively.

#### **3. Results**

As a result, we have a functional *app* called PreLectO that allows access to both game and administration modules. Regarding the game module for users, we implemented 9 games (see image on the right side of Figure 1), allowing for the selection of the category to be trained, the number of times the game was to be played, or (if possible) the type of game, always with immediate feedback on game performance. To summarize, the nine games implemented are as follows:


**Figure 1.** Game module menu (**left**) and some images of the games on the two rows (**right**).

For the administration module, we developed a user management system and another one for recording results during the sessions. These results can then be visualized by the specialists on graphs such as the one shown in Figure 2. On these graphs, we can see statistics such as the time required to achieve a successful outcome, or the percentage of successes, which will allow a time analysis of the child's progress according to the skills that were being worked in each game or in a set of games, subsequently recommending a therapy adapted to each scenario.

**Figure 2.** Example of an image of statistical results to track the child's progress.

Throughout this development, two acceptance tests were performed by the entity one at the end of the 5th sprint and another at the end of the 7th sprint in our Scrum methodology. Both tests were satisfactorily passed and some changes were incorporated into the *app* as a result. So far, only one 6-year-old user has tested our *app*; the child adequately responded to the therapy performed after using it.

#### **4. Discussion**

As a result of this work, a functional mobile application that responds to the needs of children with reading and writing disorders is now available. This was made possible by following the indications of both required functionalities and modifications after two validation tests were carried out by a social entity in the area of A Coruña on different versions of the application.

PreLectO allows the training and monitoring of the child's progress, which is essential for therapies used by professionals in these types of entities. In addition, stimulation through games specifically designed for young children attracts the attention of the child who, in this way, learns by playing.

**Author Contributions:** The authors contributed equally to the work. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This work was funded by the Xunta de Galicia (through grant ED431C 2020/15, and grant ED431G 2019/01 to support the Centro de Investigación de Galicia "CITIC"), the Agencia Estatal de Investigación of Spain (through grants RED2018-102668-T and PID2019-104958RB-C42), and ERDF funds of the European Union (FEDER Galicia 2014–2020 and AEI/FEDER Programs, EU).

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.

