Table 2.

Phases of the cognitive training program.

	First 10-week unit—Phase 2a		Second 10-week unit—Phase 2b	First and second 8-week units—Phase 3
	Attention	Inhibition	Switching and simple verbal working memory	Complex working memory
Adult's led interaction is focused on enhancing	Verbalization of stimuli Systematic visual exploration Sustained attention Selective attention	Maintenance of the task's goal Divided attention Selection of members of target categories	Rehearsal strategies Task planning and sequencing Focus on relevant information Semantic integration in sentence processing Summarizing the available information Anticipation of possible sources of difficulty Generalization of approach to different tasks
Examples of computer-presented exercises and card games	• Animal detective: An incomplete picture appears on the computer screen and quickly disappears. The participant is asked to recognize the animal and then identify the lacking part of the picture, selecting it from four cards. • Monsters: An adult and child take turns in selecting one or more cards with monsters, describing their characteristics and communicating the precise location in which they put them. If the second player (who cannot see what the first is doing) makes the same choices as his/her companion does, the first player wins some points.	• Characters detective: A thief has been seen from people who describe his/her characteristics. Relying on each of such descriptions (e.g., “the thief was not a woman” or, “the thief did not wear glasses”), the participant removes images from a pool of suspects until the thief is identified. • Category: Each player has six cards and proceeds on a game of the goose board if he/she can play cards according to the category specified on the board box. Categories may be single or multiple (e.g., “food and furniture”) and affirmative or negative (e.g., “no fruits, no clothes”).	• Guessing what: The participant is asked to discover what the object hidden on the computer screen is by relying on the information provided by two types of characters. A wizard will say something that is opposite of the real characteristic (e.g., “if the wizard says that the thing is put on a lower part of the body, you have to think that it is put on an upper part of the body”). A pessimistic man will say something true but will add pessimistic evaluations that may distract you (e.g., “he will say that you wear this thing when it is hot, and he will add that if you do not do so, it may be very dangerous, and you can even die”). • The dolphin game: Players proceed with a game of the goose if they can repeat the sequence of words that has being said by the other player and add a new word according to the instruction specified on the board box. Boxes on the board ask for a fixed number of words (from 2 to 6) either starting with a given letter or belonging to a given category.	• Stories: Short narrative sequences are read by the adult and are also shown on the computer screen with the written text accompanied by a picture. For instance: “A hare was very proud of herself because she could run quickly. One day she said to all the other animals: - nobody is quicker than me; nobody has the courage to race with me-.” After the last sentence is read, the short passage disappears from the computer screen, and the participant is asked to produce a pragmatic judgment (e.g., “is what the hare says friendly?”) and then to recall the sentence. • Take cards and remember: Each player has three picture cards and can take one of four picture cards on the table, following the given rules (e.g., humans can take animals, animals can take plants or fruits, plants or fruits can take objects). At the end of the round, each player attempts to recall the word that was written on each of the taken cards (e.g., the word “surprise” written under the image of a birthday cake), and if he/she manages to do so, he/she wins the cards.