EYT Mr Ant

The ‘Mr Ant’ Task is an iPad-based assessment of ‘visual-spatial working memory’ (i.e., the amount of visual information that concurrently can be coordinated in mind). In this game, children are presented with an image of a cartoon character – Mr. Ant – who has a number of coloured stickers placed in different parts of his body. After a predetermined amount of time, these dots disappear and the child is then asked to recall the locations of the dots by tapping the spatial locations on Mr. Ant that they believe previously held stickers. This game takes approximately 5-10 minutes to complete.

The 'Early Years Toolbox' (EYT, for short) is comprised of six brief, engaging game-like assessments of young children’s self-regulation, executive functioning and vocabulary. These games are based on well-established and widely used measures for young children (e.g., go/no-go, dimensional change card sort), yet have been adapted and optimised on the basis of 20+ years of research experience with this age group.

NOTE FOR RESEARCHERS. If using this app for research and/or publication purposes, please cite the following as the original source articles (please feel free to contact us for copies of these articles):

Howard, S. J., & Okely, T. (2015). Catching fish and avoiding sharks: Investigating factors that influence developmentally appropriate measurement of preschoolers’ inhibitory control. Journal of Psychoeducational Assessment, 33(6), 585-596.

Howard, S. J., & Melhuish, E. (2015). An Early Years Toolbox (EYT) for assessing early executive function, language, self-regulation, and social development: Validity, reliability and preliminary norms. Manuscript submitted for publication.