Semiotic Inspection of a Game for Children with Down Syndrome

International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, 2017

This article describes the design, implementation and evaluation of an educational video game that helps individuals with Down syndrome to improve their speech skills, specifically those related to prosody. Special attention has been paid to the design of the user interface, taking into account the cognitive, learning and attentional limitations of people with Down syndrome. The learning content is conveyed by activities of production and perception of prosodic phenomena, aimed at increasing their communicative competence. These activities are introduced within the narrative of a video game, so that the players do not conceive the tool as a mere succession of learning activities, but so that they learn and improve their speech while playing. The evaluation strategy that has been followed involves real users and combines different evaluation activities. Results show a high level of acceptance by participants and also by professionals, speech therapists and special education teachers.

Technium Social Sciences Journal

Down syndrome is considered to be one of the most prevalent genetic causes of intellectual disability, derived from chromosomal disorder, which accounts for dysfunctions in many organs and has a characteristic phenotype, which consists of physical and behavioral features. Many studies have shown that language is one of the most impaired areas of function in Down syndrome and perhaps, the highest barrier for their substantial inclusion into formal education and community. Τhe aim of this paper is to investigate the specific features of this linguistic phenotype, presenting the strengths and weaknesses of their language, as well as the factors that contribute to their formation, compared to normally developing children. In addition, it scopes to highlight the role of educational mobile apps, as innovative and interactive tools for the developmental learning of Down syndrome children. The results of the research indicate that their language goes through the same, with typical development sequences, but progressively erases a slowing trajectory and results in lower performance. However, the use of digital games, especially virtual reality video games, can, significantly, improve their cognitive and fine mobile functioning and also the acquisition of literacy, language and math skills, in order to upgrade their quality of life.

Proceedings of the 13th Web for All Conference on - W4A '16, 2016

Learning environments have been profoundly reshaped by pervasive technology. New educational methodologies take full advantage of ICT in a mobile customized user-friendly environment, to support learning and stimulate individuals' potential. Unfortunately, technologyenhanced learning tools are not often designed with accessibility in mind, although they can greatly benefit the personal empowerment and inclusion of special-needs people. To address this gap, a Web platform has been created for delivering accessible games to people with Down syndrome. Since personalization, orderliness and positive reinforcement are crucial to learning in these subjects, the platform offers a personalized safe environment for learning, conforming to behavioral analysis principles. Learning analytics are incorporated in the platform for easy monitoring of student progress via Web interfaces. The participatory design driving the development of the learning platform allowed the customization of the games' discriminative stimuli, difficulty levels and reinforcement, as well as the creation of a game "engine" to easily set up new personalized exercises. These customization features make the game platform usable by a larger audience, including individuals with learning difficulties and autism. CCS Concepts • Human-centered computing~Web-based interaction • Humancentered computing~Accessibility systems and tools • Social and professional topics~People with disabilities • Applied computing~Interactive learning environments

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2013

Testing products with representative users is a key factor for usercentered design. When such representative users are disabled children the user testing process becomes a challenge and in this case evaluation methods based on heuristics and inspection could not attend the final user needs. The major purpose of our research is to provide an evaluation method that could measure disabled children interaction. This work first discusses the development of the coding scheme based on the detailed video analysis method which was adapted to observe interaction of children with Down syndrome. After that we demonstrate the method reliability by applying the cohen's kappa coefficient and the any-two agreement measure. Finally we discuss how this method could be used to evaluate usability and fun problems.

Computer games can provide a participatory and engaging therapy experience for children with cerebral palsy (CP). However, significant accessibility issues must be considered and addressed. This paper discusses the design process and a subsequent evaluation session for a suite of accessible games that children with CP can independently play, engage with, and enjoy. To maximise accessibility, the games were designed so all control was based on joystick movements only, eliminating the need for in-game button use. A focus group session involving 31 typically developing children was conducted to solicit honest feedback and critique on six of the games. Positive feedback from the evaluation session supported the quality of the games and the participants’ willingness to replay them, with participant responses providing an 88% positive endorsement of the games. The evaluation demonstrated that the games would suit the intended intervention despite the modified control mechanic used to address accessibility issues. One of the major benefits of this early evaluation was that it helped to identify weaknesses in the initial game designs, with this information then feeding back into the development lifecycle for future iterations of the games and the development of new games.

Proceedings of the 21st Congress of the International Ergonomics Association (IEA 2021), 2021

A previous literature review indicated the lack of studies about how to develop accessible games for children with Down syndrome and evaluate their interfaces. With that in mind, the research team decided to do a new one focusing only on finding usability methods that can be applied with this specific audience regarding their safety and their conditions. Therefore, this analysis used the Cochrane methodology organized into: research question, location and selection of the study, critical evaluation of the studies, data analysis, and content analysis. In total, 22 articles were selected from Scopus and Web of Science, in which the observational analysis method was the most used one, maybe because it does not require the user to communicate verbally a lot nor to remember his entire journey. Other methods found were heuristic evaluation, interview, focus group, and questionnaires. Some initiatives must be mentioned such as the research of Lazar et al. which used the assistance of an illustrator to help the volunteers in expressing their ideas during a workshop, and finally, the review permitted to create a list of precautions and recommendations before and during a test with children with Trisomy 21.

People with intellectual disabilities are a part of our society, but unfortunately, they are often excluded. Their assistance includes everything they need in their lives. The work in the various workshops for people with disabilities often gives them the feeling that they are needed, but few can find access to an independent life by further developing and training of themselves. The pleasure of (digital) game playing and learning with a game is not yet considered a standard constituent of leisure time activities in sheltered workshops for people with an intellectual disability. Qualitative studies with off-the-shelf digital games have demonstrated enormous potentials of game playing for the assistance of people with an intellectual disability. However, conventional off-the-shelf digital games have severe limitations. The authors' qualitative studies lead (i) to a requirement specification and (ii) to the design and implementation of a completely new digital game meeting essential needs of people with an intellectual disability. The present publication surveys the results of the qualitative observations and leads to the recently completed game design.

Advances in Human Factors and System Interactions

When creating user interfaces, usability considerations are important to ensure the target population an efficient and effective user experience. For this reason, recommendations are proposed for a preliminary prototype of a serious gaming application called HabCog, which consists of a collection of minigames designed for monitoring and evaluating certain cognitive abilities in users. The target population consists of adults with intellectual disabilities who use the services of the FINE Foundation, whose objective is to develop skills and abilities for full inclusion. According to the results, usability recommendations are provided so that the application is better adapted to the target population.

IEEE Access

Serious Games (SG) have a particular ability to motivate and engage in the therapeutic and learning process. There are multiple approaches based on methodologies, frameworks, and models for SG design, which have been proposed based on a specific domain. However, the relationship between the Software Engineering methodologies, with the requirement described in the Game Design Document, and the Instructional Design have not been discussed together. This paper proposes a conceptual model and discusses their relations among those domains, that aims to fill this gap. In order to define the model, those approaches available were analyzed and compared, then suggests several components needed for game design. It describes the primary structure focus on four phases Analysis, Design, Development, and Evaluation, which identifies and validates the roles of all components to achieve the desired educational goals. SG maned "ATHYNOS" was developed to help children with learning disabilities. Finally, a case study with three units of analysis points out that ATYHNOS aided participants in the level of concentration, hand-eye coordination, motor skills, and cognitive reinforcement. INDEX TERMS Serious Games, Conceptual Model for Design, game-based learning, ATHYNOS.

This paper presents a series of playful encounters during a game design workshop especially designed for young people with intellectual disability. Playlab is a weekly workshop of playful interactions and game design, taking place in a special education school for children and young adults with developmental disabilities, in Athens. In this paper we present this open and playful game design methodology as it was formed by the participants and the researcher-facilitator. We also present examples of its playful outcomes, as well as some preliminary observations regarding the experience and social interactions of the participants, using the theoretical basis of Erving Goffman's Frame Analysis and the methodological tools of Interaction Analysis.