Research Summary: Developing social-cognitive skills in deaf and hard-of-hearing children through a gamified digital intervention: a multisite class-level quasi-experimental study

A multisite, class-level quasi-experimental study evaluated the efficacy of a 12-week gamified digital intervention in enhancing social-cognitive skills among 120 deaf and hard-of-hearing primary school children across 12 classes in Kazakhstan. Compared to an active non-digital program, the digital intervention, which included visually accessible scenarios and immediate feedback, was associated with greater improvements in social-cognitive performance, suggesting its potential effectiveness in this specific educational context.

Why it matters

This research highlights the potential of technology-enabled, gamified interventions to address specific developmental needs within special education. Demonstrating superior outcomes compared to traditional methods can inform strategic investments in accessible digital learning tools and curriculum design for diverse student populations, fostering equitable educational opportunities and capability development.

Key insights

• The study involved 120 deaf and hard-of-hearing primary school children from 12 classes across three special education schools in Kazakhstan.
• A 12-week gamified digital intervention was compared against an active non-digital social-emotional program.
• The digital intervention incorporated visually accessible social scenarios, facial-expression and branching-decision tasks, immediate corrective feedback, repeated attempts, and progressive difficulty, supported by teacher-guided discussion.
• Pre-test and post-test data were collected using a study-specific social-cognitive assessment.
• The digital intervention was associated with greater improvement in social-cognitive performance compared to the non-digital alternative.

Source

Frontiers in Education — https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feduc.2026.1947526