Limited studies exist that explore motion-based touchless applications for children with ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and investigate their design issues and the benefits they can bring to this target group. The paper reports a structured set of design guidelines that distill our experience gained from empirical studies and collaborations with therapeutic centers. These heuristics informed the design of three touchless games that were evaluated in a controlled study involving medium functioning ASD children at a therapeutic center. Our findings confirm the potential of motion-based touchless applications games in technology-enhanced interventions for this target group.
BACKGROUNDThe Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a general term for a group of complex disorders of brain development, characterized, in varying degrees, by difficulties in social interaction, verbal and nonverbal communication and repetitive behaviors often accompanied by sensorimotor impairments. Autism, estimated to affect 1 of every 88 children, is marked by the presence of impairments along a triad of dimensions: social interaction, communication, and imagination. Children with autism show a great variance of symptoms, ranging from a delay or a total lack of spoken language to a severe impairment in the use of nonverbal behaviors that regulate social interaction, to a failure to develop peer relationships appropriate to age. ASD children also show imagination inability, manifested in the difficulty to generalize between environments, in a limited range of imaginative activities and in a difficulty in figuring out future events and abstract ideas. This reflects to a lack of spontaneous make-believe play or social imitative play and tendency to repetitive and stereotyped patterns of activity. Other behavioral symptoms include hyperactivity, short attention span, impulsivity, aggressiveness, self-injurious behavior, and temper tantrums. Studies conducted to consider the effectiveness of digital technologies for ASD children reveal that these tools are in general well received [16]. A digital environment provides stimuli that are more focused, predictable, and replicable than conventional tools. It also reduces the confusing, multi-sensory distractions of the real world that may induce anxiety and create barriers to social communication. In addition, digital tools can exploit the benefits of visually based interventions adopted in existing therapeutic practices such as video modeling [6]. Existing products and prototypes for autistic children exploit a variety of technologies and interaction modes, from desktop to multitouch mobile devices, tangibles and digitally augmented objects, robots [11], and more recently, touchless motion based environments, enabling users to interact using body movements without any physical contact with digital tools. The goal of our research is to design, develop and evaluate touchless motion based games that can be used for educational and therapeutic purposes in different contexts -school, therapeutic center, home...
