Autism Serious Game Framework (ASGF) for Developing Games for Children with Autism

Abstract

Given their ability to motivate and engage users, digital media, and games in particular, are being adopted on a mass scale in a wide area of applications including education, training, health care, and therapy, amongst others. Traditional therapy for children diagnosed with autism comprises a set of activities aimed at improving behavioral traits often associated with social and communication skills. However, the therapy process is challenging as every child responds differently to the intervention. There are usually long wait lists for treatment and there are high demands for the time clinician’s can provide for treatment. Games, and serious games in particular, that can be easily tailored to the needs of specific individuals, and that can span a wide range of scenarios, are proving to be effective alternatives to traditional therapy. Here we present an autism serious game framework (ASGF) whose goal is to provide therapists with a simple interface that will allow them to develop various serious game interventions. Using the ASGF, we have developed two games, one whose goal is to help users identify emotions by matching facial expressions such as happiness, anger, fear, or sadness, and another, which focuses on response inhibition. The ASGF employs a graphical user interface-based, What You See Is What You Get interface, that simplifies the development of autism serious games.

The support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada is gratefully acknowledged.