Abstract

This study aims to validate the initial efficacy of CEMO-A, a digital monitoring tool designed for assessing children’s mental health and early screening. CEMO-A integrates an ecologically valid assessment approach and serious gaming elements, enabling naturalistic and valid assessments in everyday environments. It comprehensively evaluates sustained attention, working memory, cognitive control, executive function, emotion sensitivity, and emotion recognition to detect major mental health disorders. The study involved 100 typically developing children aged 6 to 10 years. CEMO-A’s performance was compared with standardized psychological assessments, including intelligence tests, neuropsychological tests, and caregiver-report questionnaires, to examine construct and concurrent validity. Results indicated that CEMO-A independently and integratively assessed cognitive and emotional functions, demonstrating construct validity, while comparisons with existing standardized tests confirmed concurrent validity. These findings suggest that CEMO-A is a valuable digital tool for efficiently evaluating children’s mental health and holds potential for early screening and preventive intervention.