2019 XXII Symposium on Image, Signal Processing and Artificial Vision (STSIVA)
Alternative Measurement Instrument to Evaluate
Executive Functions in Children of All Scholar
Range.
Sara Virginia Martı́nez-Ortega
Engineering Faculty
Universidad Santiago de Cali
Cali, Colombia
sara.martinez01@usc.edu.co
Abstract—Problems related to executive functions can be
characterized as weaknesses in a set of mental skills that are key
during the learning process. Child neuropsychologists are often
asked to determine whether a child experiencing dificulties in
the academic setting has a specific learning disability attentional
deficit, memory impairment, or some combination of these
problems. Typically, the diagnosis is carried out by using a set
of standardized questionnaires, which are not friendly and put
a lot of stress over the evaluated child. In this work is propose
a measurement instrument using computational tools to evaluate
the principal dimensions of the executive functions: viso-spatial
work memory, phonological work memory, processing speed,
inhibition control, planning and organization, and cognitive
flexibility, in children of all scholar range (6 to 16 years old).
Conclusive results have not be obtained yet, as this is the initial
stage of development.
Index Terms—executive functions, inhibition control, viso-
spatial work memory, cognitive flexibility, procesing speed,
kinect, Python, Pygame, QT, OpenCV.
I. I NTRODUCTION
E XECUTIVE functions are abilities that allow individuals
to achieve goals and social adaptations. Some of this
functions are the organization capacity, planning activities,
impulse inhibitions, norms adaptations and work memory,
wich are indispensable in the process of learning, decision
making and the achievement of goals. Alterations of executive
functions are key to diagnosis different disorders like attention
deficit with hyperactivity [1], autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
or autism spectrum condition (ASC) [2], reading comprehen-
sion failures [3], inhibitory control [4] and the work memory
problems [5].
Proper measurement of these functions are of great in-
terest in the educational field, due to its relation with the
learning proccess and to other cognitive functions [6]. For
this reason its important to perform an objective evaluation
of the executive functions in children, this way, education
or healthcare professionals can use these measurements to
help during the diagnosis process of different pathologies or
monitor advances during the rehabilitation stage. However,
Universidad Santiago de Cali, Facultad de Ingeniera, Grupo GIEIAM.
978-1-7281-1491-0/19/$31.00 ©2019 IEEE
Milton Sarria-Paja
Engineering Faculty
Universidad Santiago de Cali
Cali, Colombia
milton.sarria00@usc.edu.co
the diagnosis is carried out by using a set of standardized
questionnaires, which are not friendly and put a lot of stress
over the evaluated child [7].
Currently in Latin America, institutes in countries like
Colombia and Mexico, perform the child neuropsychological
evaluation (ENI, spanish acronym) [8] or the batery of the
executive funtions and frontal lobes [9], which consist in a set
of tasks that have a similar format to a scholar evaluation, this
means that the test is carried out by using paper and pencil, and
each test is made separately. In Chile, for example, there are
two different evaluations for the executive functions: The child
neuropsychological evaluation test (TENI, spanish acronym)
that is which uses a tablet and has a game format, but it is
only for children between the 3 and 9 years old [10], and the
BRIEF, an indirect evaluation that collect the concept of the
teachers about the executive functions of their students in all
age range. Besides, it is a non-objective evaluation, it has good
psychometric results for the evaluators, but it is not regulated
for its use in all the country [11].
In this work, it is of great interest to perform a blind
evaluation of the executive functions in children of all scholar
range. The blind evaluation helps to avoid the low motivation
and the fatigue because the children are not aware of being
evaluated, so the results are not affected for this factors. It is
necessary to point out that this is a course project attempting
to present a technological solution to allow psychologist to
evaluate executive functions in children. To achive this, it was
implemented a tool that uses an object tracking algorithm, an
application of computer science [12], that will allow to defined
the object that would interact with the participant.
The measurement instrument that is propose in this work,
uses the Kinect, a motion sensing input device that was
produced by Microsoft for Xbox 360 and Xbox One video
game consoles and Microsoft Windows PCs. Based around
a webcam-style add-on peripheral, it enables users to control
and interact with their console/computer without the need for a
game controller, through a natural user interface using gestures
and spoken commands [13]. The sensor is interface with an
algorithm using the Python language programing to implement

Figure 1. Diagram of the process of Data acquisition
an interactive game to evaluate five dimensions of the execu-
tive functions for children of 6 to 16 years old: planning and
organization, verbal and viso-spatial work memory, inhibition
control, cognitive flexibility and the processing speed.
II. M ETHODOLOGY
The propose is the implementation of a test composed by
five games with the option of age range: 6 to 7 years old or 8
to 16 years old. The elements of measure are time, successes
and failures; information that is requested by the evaluator to
declare if children present any pathology.
The core of our proposal relies in the use of an object track-
ing algorithm and a Kinect sensor. Figure 1 summarizes the
process of this work from the moment the kinect start working
and collecting data. The tasks are developed using the Python
programing language, which incorporates the libraries QT for
the user interface and pygame, which allows to implement
arcade games. The collected information goes to a data base,
and will be subject of further analysis by the specialist. It is
used also the OpenCv library, a free open source computer
vision library which implements several image processing
algoriths that facilitate the development of the algorithm to
track objects.
The Kinect sensor is preferable for the task at hand as
it is equipped with sensors of colour and depth-sensing
lenses,voice microphone array and tilt motor for sensor ad-
justment [13]. Thanks to this, there is no need of additional
sensing hardware to detect the position of the child.
The graphical user interface would request the name of the
child, age and guardian name to store this information and the
results of the test in a data base.
The overall process depicted in Figure 1, where the input
to the system is the image captured by the Kinect sensor.
This image is composed by information extracted from the
RGB camera and the depth sensor. Next, the process to detect
and track the object of interest is applied, i.e., the image is
converted to one single matrix in 8 bit representation per pixel.
Then a gaussian smoothing filter is applied and the result
converted to a binary image applying thresholding. Next, all
Figure 2. Initial interface
Figure 3. Children information
candidates of object of interest are detected and it is selected
only the one with maximum area. Finally the coordinates
(x, y) are computed using the center of the object of interest.
These (x, y) coordinates are accumulated using a 10 samples
buffer, so the final result is the average of these 10 samples.
This allows to track the smoothed trajectory of the object
avoiding a noisy result. The algorithm is calibrated to work
with a distance of 80 cm to the sensor, so it can detect all
range of movement without imposing big displacements to
the participant.
The (x, y) coordinates are used to feed the game and
move an interactive object that can touch other objects in the
screen. Depending on the task the user will be ask to perform
specific movements and the results of the execution of these
movements can be stored completely for further analysis.
The figure II is the initial screen of the interface, where
the activities can be initiated, access to the explanation of the
controls or the credits.
After that, the data of the children and their relative is stored
(figure II) and the user have to select the age range (figure II)
because the activities are different for the children of 6-7 to
the 8-16.
Then the activity is selected depending of the executive
function that is going to be evaluated (figure II). Another
Figure 4. Age Selection
Figure 5. Activities Selection
 Figure 6. Alternate interface
Figure 7. Inhabited control activitie
interface use is the one shown in the figure 6. that allow to
choose if the children is going to work with the mouse or the
camera.
The figure 7 is an example of one of the games, in this
particular case, this game evaluated the inhibition control.
In this game there are three characters: the bat, the pink
bear globes and the green frog. The children control the
bat with their hands and approach to the character that they
decided. They must touch only the pink bear globes, that
would disappear, and avoid to touch the green frogs. Everytime
the frogs are touch, the frog doesn’t disappear and it could be
heard the word “No”. A score is shown in the screen whenever
each of the characters is touch.
The task is easy to perform and allow that the children with
easy movement accomplish them.
III. C ONCLUSIONS AND FUTURE WORK
The evaluation of executive tasks is addressed in this work.
The propose is the implementation of a tool using an object
tracking algorithm together with the Kinect sensor to help
the evaluation tasks to be user friendly and more interactive.
Object tracking technology has many applications that allow to
work even with persons that have movement disabilities. One
of the future works is the implementation of different games
for different age ranges. In would be necessary to incorporate
to the study professionals working in psychology to evaluate
the validity of the proposed tool.
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