Smart Monitor for Tracking Child’s Brain Development
T. Anparasanesan K. Mathangi
Faculty of Computing Faculty of Computing
Sri Lanka Institute of Information Sri Lanka Institute of Information
Technology (SLIIT) Technology (SLIIT)
Malabe, Sri Lanka Malabe, Sri Lanka
+94 774962290 +94 776841387
anparasanesan@gmail.co mathangi100@gmail.com
m
S. Seyon M. P. A. W. Anjalie
Faculty of Computing Gamage
Sri Lanka Institute of Information Faculty of Computing
Technology (SLIIT) Sri Lanka Institute of Information
Malabe, Sri Lanka Technology (SLIIT)
+94 776487999 +94 776028400
seyon94@gmail.com anjalie.g@sliit.lk
ABSTRACT
This paper provides a way to track the brain development of
children and improving it via gamification. Machine Learning and
Gamification are the key technologies used here. As the
population rises, the demand for cost-effective methods to reduce
the rate of cognitive decline becomes higher. A mobile
application is developed to track and develop the brain
development of children. In the mobile application, the child
initially undergoes an evaluation phase to determine the current
level of the cognitive skills of the child. Milestones particular to
that age category are also tracked in this evaluation phase. The
results of this evaluation phase are analyzed by the machine
learning model and suitable brain games are suggested. K-means
algorithm is used to develop the model which is an unsupervised
learning algorithm. The dataset is prepared by storing the results
of each game category in the evaluation phase. Data
preprocessing is done to clean up the dataset. During this period,
data undergoes a series of steps. The dataset is divided into 80%
and 20%. 80% of the dataset is used as the training dataset and the
remaining 20% as the test dataset. The accuracy of the model is
checked several times against the test data. Model accuracy is
improved through model training and finally, the model got an
accuracy of 88.49%. For the child, proper training is given to
improve his cognitive skills and thus the brain development using
Gamification. Games are developed using the UNITY game
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ICEIT 2019, March 2–4, 2019, Cambridge, United Kingdom
© 2019 Association for Computing Machinery.
ACM ISBN 978-1-4503-6267-2/19/03…$15.00
http://doi.org/10.1145/3318396.3318401
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S. Kobikanth
Faculty of Computing
Sri Lanka Institute of Information
Technology (SLIIT)
Malabe, Sri Lanka
+94 776447004
skobikanth@gmail.com
engine. The system generates a report and notifies parents about
their child’s statistics periodically. This paper elaborates the
procedure of model development, model training, model testing
and development of suitable brain games in details. The results of
the research work and future works are also discussed in the
following sections.
CCS Concepts
Human-centered computing~Ubiquitous and mobile
computing design and evaluation methods
Keywords
android application; children; clustering; cognitive skills;
gamification; k-means algorithm; machine learning
1. INTRODUCTION
Neurological research shows that the early years play a key role
in children’s brain development[1]. A child’s brain undergoes an
amazing period of development during the first six years.
Children cultivate 85% of their intellect, personality, and skills by
age five[2]. So, it is vital to pay enough attention in the early
years to track and develop brain development. But in developing
countries, more than 200 million children under five years fail to
reach their potential in cognitive and social development[3].
The world is becoming mechanized, and the people are running
out of time. Though it is important to track the child’s brain
development and provide necessary guidance and training they
need, parents find it hard to tend to their children as parents do
not have enough time as they are occupied and busy. This might
lead the child into loneliness unless the child has grandparents or
a babysitter. Moreover, this loneliness can be a threat to the
psychology of the child and can affect the mental balance and
thus the brain development. This might lead them totally on a
different path in their future which might make them
antisocial/introverts.
So, considering all these problems, an application is developed
which is capable of tracking a child’s brain development and
improves it via gamification. Machine Learning and
Gamification are the key technologies used to develop the
application. Machine learning is used successfully in many
intellectual applications. The developed system is an Android
application with multiple features. Parents can easily track their
children’s brain development with this application ‘MAKS’.
Nowadays, the influence of technology on children and education
has been immense. These days children are very comfortable
with electronic gadgets and equipment. To keep the children
interested, using a gamification based mobile application for
education may assist.
It is true that children are more interested in playing games rather
than studying. So, it is an advantageous idea to develop their
cognitive skills at a very prominent time via gamification. This
research work is aimed at children to develop their cognitive
skills via gamification. The machine learning model used here
suggests the suitable brain games and their levels to each child,
analyzing their base cognitive skills level.
In this research work, a mobile application is developed to track a
child’s brain growth level and to improve it via gamification. The
proper ways to test the brain growth factors like concentration,
memory power, response time, attention are discovered in the
Evaluation phase. Evaluation phase is a testing environment for
children in the Android app to determine their basic level of
cognitive skills. Memory, Concentration, Attention and Response
time are some factors that occupy a prominent place in brain
development. Those factors are tested in this phase for each child
through appropriate games and their scores are stored in Firebase.
The dataset used to cluster is built up from this, respectively four
columns each contains scores of respective games. Additionally,
milestones are also tracked against age in the Evaluation phase.
Developmental milestones are behaviors or physical skills seen in
infants and children as they grow and develop. The milestones
are different for each age range[4]. The standards of the
milestones are collected from a recognized pediatrician.
The child undergoes an Evaluation phase initially to determine
the level of cognitive skills and to track the milestones. Then in
the decision-making process, the system finds out where the child
stands in between the relevant range of brain growth by analyzing
the collected data, i.e., their scores in each game. Then the
machine learning model suggests the most suitable games to play
to develop the skill in which the child lags. The system interacts
with the child and trains it accordingly to increase his brain
growth level via gamification. The application also maintains
statistics about each child. It generates a report periodically,
stating the child’s brain growth status and suggestions and
notifies parents, so parents can interact with the child in a way the
child needs. This is how the system works.
K-means clustering is the algorithm used here to build the model.
It is an unsupervised learning algorithm, which is used when the
dataset is unlabeled (i.e., data without defined categories or
group). The objective of this algorithm is to find groups in the
data, with the number of groups represented by the variable K[5].
Gamification has become increasingly popular since it offers a
wide range of advantages and helps to make the overall
experience not only more enjoyable but more effective too. When
people participate in activities that stimulate their bodies or minds,
such as exercising, our body releases a hormone known as
endorphins. The same effect can be achieved by playing games
that challenge learners or give them the chance to achieve a
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particular reward, even if that reward is something as simple as
moving on to the next level[6].
Why Gamification
Since 2014, gamification - the use of game design elements in
non-game contexts – has seen rapid adaption in the software
industry as well as a growing topic for research on its uses and
effects.
Successful Gamification tools work because they [7]:
a. Give users the motivation to do something.
b. Give users the ability to carry out a task.
c. Give the user a trigger to complete the action.
Paul Howard-Jones at the University of Bristol has been
conducting fMRI studies on gamification in learning for several
years. His findings demonstrate something of significance that
colleagues at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine are
just beginning to investigate, and they have shown and proven the
activation of the ventral striatum, the central reward and learning
center of the brain, to be triggered by game mechanics but not
through self-study or quiz completion [8].
Therefore, it is planned to use gamification technique to give
training to children to improve the skills in which they lag.
2. RELATED WORK
There are many apps available for children, but they are very
generic. They do not evaluate each child individually and suggest
games according to their status. Further, those apps do not
guarantee the improvement of a child’s cognitive skills. The
available apps are very generic gaming applications developed for
entertainment purpose only. And most of the brain-boosting
applications are not free. Only a limited version is free. They cost
considerably a large amount. In this work, all these missing
features are added and an app is developed which is more
interesting and specific to children. This application also checks
out the milestones specific to age. The user can use this
application for free once it is hosted in the play store. And this
mobile application is not similar to other generic gaming
applications because in other applications, the game starts from
level 1, but here level will be selected automatically according to
the status of the child.
3. METHODOLOGY
Following explain how the system works.
 Initially, the system evaluates the child to determine the
current level of the child’s cognitive skills and to track the
milestones.
 The results of the evaluation phase are used to determine
whether the child has attained the expected brain growth for
his/her age.
 A dataset is prepared based on the results from the testing
environment containing the values for the four factors
mentioned earlier.
 A model is developed and well trained to suggest suitable
brain games based on child’s data collected from the testing
environment.
 A child plays the suggested brain games for a certain period
of time as directed. And later when he undergoes the
Evaluation phase again and re-evaluates himself, the
 increase in scores indicates the improvement in his cognitive
skills and thus the brain development.
The proposed system is developed as an Android application.
The Android Operating System is selected because using a
machine learning model along with a variety of games in a cross-
platform is complex. Android has reachability among the public,
cost-effective and comparatively easy to integrate with the
UNITY engine. UNITY has been used to design and develop
games in this project.
Figure 1. High-Level Diagram of the System
Following section discuss the workflow of the proposed solution
in detail.
3.1 Developing an evaluation phase to test
children to record their initial status
A deep study is conducted to discover the psychological factors
behind child’s brain development. There are many factors that
affect brain development. Mental stimulation, nutrition, physical
activity, interpersonal relationships, and genetics are some of
them. Families have an extremely important ongoing influence
on children’s development. The community and service
environments in which children and families interact also play a
key role in supporting optimal development[9]. As it is only
possible to stimulate mentally with the application, four factors
are selected to evaluate in children which occupy a prominent
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place in brain growth. Concentration, response time, memory and
attention are the factors to be tested on children. So, to evaluate
children through these factors to determine their current level of
cognitive skills, an Evaluation phase is designed in the Android
app. The milestones are also checked out against age in phase.
As children are the key users of the application, an interactive
environment (UI/UX) is discovered to keep them interested.
3.2 Developing a model for prediction
To create a model, a suitable algorithm has to be selected
according to the specifications. Clustering needs to be done here
to the dataset. So, initially, four different clustering algorithms
were selected and tested against the dataset to find out the model
with higher accuracy. The accuracy of the model depends on the
machine learning algorithm that is used to build up the model and
the training provided to the model. So, by analyzing all four
algorithms, one algorithm needs to be selected precisely. The
selected four clustering algorithms are:
I. Self-Organizing Map (SOM)
II. K-Means Clustering algorithm (K-Means)
III. Expectation Maximization Clustering (EM)
IV. Hierarchical Cluster Analysis (HCA)
These four algorithms have both positives and negatives. Out of
this K-Means algorithm is selected since it proved more effective
when tested against the test dataset.
Then the model is developed using K-means clustering
algorithm. K-means clustering is used to find groups which
have not been explicitly labeled in the dataset. This
algorithm can be used to confirm assumptions about what
types of groups exist or to identify unknown groups in
complex datasets. The algorithm works iteratively to assign
each data point to one of the K groups based on the features
that are provided. Data points are clustered based on feature
similarity. The results of the K-means clustering algorithm
are [5]:
I. The centroids of the K clusters, which can be used to
label new data.
II. Labels for the training data (each data point is assigned
to a single cluster)
The geometry/metric utilized in the K-means algorithm is
distances between points. The main conception is to determine
k centers, one for each cluster. So, number of clusters have to
be fixed here. There are four types of games available for
those four memory factors with three difficulty levels: easy,
medium and hard. So, the number of clusters is specified as 12
(k=12).
The K-means algorithm is aimed to decide on centroids that
minimize the inertia, or within-cluster sum of squared criterion.
𝑛
2
∑ 𝑚𝑖𝑛⁡(‖𝑥𝑗 − 𝜇𝑖 ‖ )
𝑖=0
This algorithm partitions the dataset of N samples X into K
disjoint clusters C. 𝜇𝑖 ⁡denotes the mean of the clusters in the
sample.
The algorithm analyzes the data provided, looks for specific
patterns, and uses the results of this analysis to develop optimal
parameters for creating the model. Once the algorithm has been
run, and the groups are defined, any new data can be easily
assigned to the correct group.
The goal of the machine learning model is to suggest the most
relevant games specific to the child to develop the skill in
which the child lags. The model analyses the data and
determines whether to direct the child to advanced levels in the
games or to provide proper training with easy/medium levels.
3.3 Model training
The model is refined through model training. Number of
iterations and the richness of the data are raised. Data
preprocessing is used to transform raw data into an
understandable format. Data preprocessing is done initially to
clean the dataset by removing unnecessary features and null
values. The process of reducing the number of random
variables under consideration, by obtaining a set of principal
values is dimensionality reduction. Dimensionality reduction
is performed as having data of high dimensionality is
problematic because it can mean high computational cost to
perform learning and inference and it often leads to overfitting.
3.4 Model testing
Testing is making a prediction upon a set of data we already know
the result, and we check how good the algorithm predicted the
desired data. From the results, it could be verified if the
algorithm has learned or not.
Evaluating the performance of a clustering algorithm is not as
trivial as counting the number of errors or the precision and recall
of a supervised classification algorithm.
K-fold cross-validation algorithm is selected to evaluate the
model. The procedure has a single parameter called k that refers
to the number of groups that a given data sample is to be split into.
When we assign a value for k, it may be used in place of k in
reference to the model, such as k=5 becoming 5-fold cross-
validation.
3.5 Gamification
Gamification is aimed to develop the cognitive skills via games in
an interactive environment. The games are developed to test
memory power, concentration, understanding objects, shape
variance, and easy vocabulary to examine the brain growth level.
For each category, the games have been developed with different
difficulty levels. If the child finishes the level, then the system
proceeds to the next level. Suppose the child fails a level, the
system identifies the child’s interested areas and train the child
based on those areas.
Apparatus
The technical requirements of the research are as follows.
1. Android phone with operating system 4.1 or higher Android
platform is chosen because it is a widely used mobile
operating system.
2. Android studio - Android studio is the officially integrated
environment (IDE) for Google’s Android operating system.
3. Firebase
4. Windows 10
Design and procedures
With all these procedures and technical requirements, the research
that described in the paper is designed as follows:
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The milestones specific to ages that contain the details of the
activities and skills are collected from a pediatrician. This is used
as standards. This standard data is compared against the child data
collected in the Evaluation phase, and the results are produced.
Initially, when the child uses the system for the first time, the
child undergoes an Evaluation phase to determine the current
brain growth level. The stated four factors are evaluated during
the testing process. Based on the child’s result, his status is
determined.
By analyzing the data specific to the child, the model redirects the
child to the suitable games and appropriate levels. Then the child
will be analyzed periodically, and the test results will be sent to
parents through a report.
4. RESULTS & DISCUSSION
This section proofs that the accuracy of the model is increased
through model training, and thus the performance. The model is
refined through several ways to increase its performance. Earlier
when the accuracy is checked against test dataset, it was quite
lower. Then it is decided to train the model in several ways.
More instances were added to the dataset to increase the data
richness and to give training to the model by making the model
familiar with various combinations of scores. And also, the
improvement in the child’s mental development is discussed in
this section.
Datasets and Preprocessing
Data collection became comparatively complex here. The dataset
is prepared by making children to play only the evaluation part of
the app and store it. Raw data cannot be used because it might be
noisy. So, data preprocessing is done. Data cleaning, data
integration, data transformation, and data reduction are done
sequentially. In data cleaning, data is cleansed through processes
such as filling in missing values, smoothing noisy data or
resolving the inconsistencies in the data. Data with different
representations are put together and conflicts within the data are
resolved in data integration. Data is normalized, aggregated and
generalized in data transformation. Data reduction aims to
present a reduced representation of data. 80% of the dataset is
used as the test set and the remaining 20% as the training set. A
sample of the dataset is shown here.
Figure 2. A sample of the dataset
Selected K-Means algorithm has done a good job when proper
training is given to that. The accuracy of the model increased
from 73.10% to 88.49% after the training period. In model
training as more instances of the dataset is added, the model could
learn more, and the experience of the model has been improved
and thus the performance.
When it comes to the system users, that is children in this project
they too have improved in the skills in which they lagged earlier.
The very first time when a child is registered with the application
and logs in, he undergoes an Evaluation phase. The child does
not undergo the Evaluation phase often. Very first time when
using the app, the child is evaluated and the after one or two
months once the child is done with the training then it undergoes
to the Evaluation phase to re-evaluate himself.
For research analysis purpose, a child’s details are recorded and
made the child to use the application. The initial scores for each
category games are recorded. Then according to the model’s
suggestion, the child is redirected to that particular game and
level. Training is given to the child via gamification. After the
successful completion of the training, i.e. the child is re-evaluated
in the Evaluation phase. As expected, there is an improvement in
the score in which the child lagged.
Challenges
 Developing a model with higher accuracy is challenging.
 Implementing RPG (Role Playing Game) mechanics and
making it interesting to motivate user interaction.
 Developing minigames inside the RPG platform to improve
the brain skills.
Approach
As the application is for children, it has been decided to
implement a role-playing game (RPG) mechanics to develop the
game with the use of gamification technique.
5. CONCLUSION
This research paper discussed on the research project ‘Smart
Monitor for Tracking Child’s Brain Development’ A way to track
and develop a child’s brain is proposed in this work using
Machine Learning and Gamification technologies.
An Android application is developed which is capable of tracking
a child’s brain growth by evaluating the child and improving it
via gamification. The proper ways to test brain growth factors are
discovered in an Evaluation phase through proper tests. By
analyzing the collected data, the model suggests suitable games.
And the user is directed to that particular game and level. Then
training is given to the child via gamification.
The system interacts with the child and trains it accordingly to
increase his brain growth through gamification. The system also
generates a report and notifies parents, so that parents can guide
and interact with the child in a way the child needs.
The machine learning model is refined in several ways to improve
its accuracy. For this model training is done. And also, it is very
important to test and evaluate the model to find out how
accurately the model predicts. The objective is to evaluate user,
trains model and evaluate the model which are accomplished.
7. REFERENCES
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http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/importance-early-
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[2] D. Eddie and D. Schmid, “Quality Matters : A Policy Brief
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[3] P. D, “Factors Affecting Early Childhood Growth and
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[4] “Developmental milestones record: MedlinePlus Medical
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[5] “Introduction to K-means Clustering.” [Online]. Available:
https://www.datascience.com/blog/k-means-clustering.
[Accessed: 19-Aug-2018].
[6] “The Science And The Benefits of Gamification In
eLearning - eLearning Industry.” [Online]. Available:
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elearning. [Accessed: 09-Aug-2018].
[7] “Success in Gamification of the Workplace - business.com.”
[Online]. Available: https://www.business.com/articles/5-
statistics-that-prove-gamification-is-the-future-of-the-
workplace/. [Accessed: 09-Aug-2018].
[8] “Gamification Research Results: Gamification Neuroscience
To Reduce Decision Error And Build A Learning
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learning-community. [Accessed: 09-Aug-2018].
[9] Y. Ahuja, “Australian early developmetn census,” Factors
Influ. Brain Dev. Child., no. Figure 1, 2014.

6. FUTURE WORKS
It is planned to introduce the application in cross-platform with
more new features like new gaming area, rewards, quests,
characters, etc. The model will be refined through several ways
for higher accuracy. A new factor to improve the cognitive skills
will be added later.

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