Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is critical to student success in school, work, and life. SEL involves the processes of developing competencies, including self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. This is fundamental nowadays, where 21st century context requires a new set of competences beyond the obvious ICT literacy: communication, collaboration, social and cultural skills, creativity, critical thinking, problem-solving, productivity in a globalized world, learning to learn skills, self-direction, planning, flexibility, risk taking, conflict management and a sense of initiative and entrepreneurship.
For this reason, child behaviour in the natural environment is a subject that is relevant for many areas of social science and bio-behavioural research. However, the measurement of these social and emotional skills in childhood is currently based mainly on subjective approaches such as parent questionnaires or clinical observation.
The current lack of quantitative scales for measuring social skills and emotional behaviour in childhood – as well as the lack of methods of evaluation which are more objective and accurate that the perception of parents and teachers/professionals- reduce the possibility to early identificate social-emotional difficulties and behavior disorders. Counting on a quantitative, accurate and easy to use tool is crucial for parents and professionals to track the evolution of children regarding self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making. Moreover having a solution to check the evolution and train the development of social skills would be also useful to prevent social-emotional problems by building positive partnerships with families and optimizing positive parent–child interactions in the first years of lifeÁlava Reyes, a Spanish leader psychologist center (SME) founded in 2003, has developed an ICT-based system for the evaluation and development of emotional and social skills, easily accessible through an application for smartphones. The system, commercially called Gomins®, feeds on the knowledge and professional experience from a team of experts in clinical child and adolescent psychology, psychopedagogy, psychological evaluation and behaviour modification. Gomins®, tested with more than 300 children between 4 and 12 years old (free users of the app), and a group of 410 children supervised by a group of psychologists and rated by their parents in different psychological and psychopathological factors, has demonstrated to be an affordable and cost-effective ICT solution.
SEL 360 Gomins®’s unique design and technology allows us to achieve two clinical objectives:
1. To identify at early stage, by objectively and accurately quantifying in real time, deviations and deficits in social behaviour competences and emotional skills
2. To deliver personalized reports, enabling optimal training by parents, teachers and schools at home and schools under remote medical support and tracking.
A feasibility study (Phase 1) has been conducted to confirm the viability for commercializing SEL 360 Gomins® at global level and then proceed with the validation of its performance and efficacy in clinical trials (Phase-2). Together, this will pave the way for a successful commercial launch on 2019 Q4 to deliver the first scientific-based game for supporting million of children to enhance their social behaviour and emotional skills.
