RESEARCH

PROJECT

Exergames to support visual-motor coordination of children with autism 

Children with autism exhibit several motor behavior problems, especially motor control deficits as visual-motor coordination. Physical therapy encourages children with autism to practice different visual-motor coordination exercises, where they practice aimed limb movements towards a visual target. Frequently children´s motor performance is not the expected and they are incapable of coordinating appropriately their limb movements with the visual stimuli. The lack of visual-motor coordination is partially due to the intelligibility and lack of interactivity of the visual stimuli being used during the motor therapeutic interventions, children frequently find them unclear and not engaging. Exergames are appropriate to support children with autism when practicing visual-motor coordination exercises, maintaining engagement and keeping children focused during therapies. The goal of my dissertation is to investigate the impact and issues raised by the use of exergames to help children with autism to improve their visual-motor coordination.

Here you can find the different versions and the progress of my Ph.D. project. I followed an iterative user-centered design methodology involving three design iterations to design and develop exergames to support visual-motor coordination of children with autism.

FroggyBobby: Low-fidelity prototype

This first version of the exergame was the result of the first iteration of the iterative design process: a contextual study at a Public Rehabilitation Center. The methods used to design this version were: semi-structured interviews with clinical specialists (e.g., physical rehabilitation doctors, psychologists, physical and occupational therapists), passive observation to motor therapeutic interventions, an exergame session with children with motor problems playing commercial exergames, and participatory design sessions. 

FroggyBobby: High-fidelity prototype

This version was the result of the second and third iteration of the iterative design process. During the second iteration, the motor coordination exercises to include in the exergame were defined. The third iteration consisted of the design specification with clinical specialists and with specialists in the care of children with autism.  The methods used to design this version were: semi-structured interviews with clinical specialists (e.g., physical rehabilitation doctors, psychologists, physical and occupational therapists), passive observation to motor therapeutic interventions using commercial exergames, focus groups, and participatory design sessions. This prototype was evaluated during a formative evaluation in a clinical center with seven children with low-functioning autism and three psychotherapists during six weeks. 

FroggyBobbyPatterns: High-fidelity prototype

This version consists of the redesign of the FroggyBobby exergame. It takes into account the design considerations resulted from the formative evaluation of the FroggyBobby exergame. This prototype was evaluated during a summative evaluation in a clinical center with fourteen children with autism and four psychotherapists for about six months.