We’re psyched to be in NYC for the 12th annual International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC ’13) along with fellow researchers, designers and educators who are focused on creating innovative, interactive experiences for kids. We are especially excited that our paper Go Go Games: Therapeutic Video Games for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders has been accepted for publication. For details, see the abstract below or download the full-length version here.
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In this paper we describe the design of a therapeutic video game suite for early elementary children with autism spectrum disorders. By creating games that are both fun and faithful to evidence-based therapies, we highlight the promise of games as a mechanism to reduce the gap between the amount of therapy recommended for those with ASD and the amount they receive. We discuss our work to ground our games in Pivotal Response Treatment, a technique known to be an effective mechanism for educating children with ASD, as well as our technique for mapping several elements of PRT into our underlying game algorithm. We outline planned future work to test the games’ efficacy as a therapeutic tool.
Please come check out our poster demo showcase if you’re attending the conference!
