An Empirical Study on the Adaptation and Automation of a Cancellation Test for Children

Tests that evaluate individual strategies of visual exploration may be useful for uncovering deviations from typical development, such as autism spectrum disorder and dyslexia. One subgroup of visual exploration tests, called cancellation tests, requires the identification of specific targets surrounded by distractors. However, the lack of automated versions of these tests limits their availability to a broader audience. In the present paper, we present an automated version of a cancellation test: the cars’ test. The test is designed to be used by specialists, optimizing both its application and the analysis of collected data. First, we evaluated the cars’ test in a group of six to nine-years-old children enrolled in a private school, 22 children in total. Then, after some modifications based on the observations made during the first test (increase in the number of targets and distractors on the screen, for example), a second test was performed in a public school with a larger group of children, 82 participants, allowing a better statistical analysis of the collected data. The results suggest that the cars’ test is useful in providing information about visual exploration strategies adopted by children and is in agreement with the results of similar tests found in the literature.