A Serious Game–Derived Index for Detecting Children With Heterogeneous Developmental Disabilities: Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

BackgroundDevelopmental disabilities are a set of heterogeneous delays or difficulties in one or more areas of neuropsychological development. Considering that childhood is an essential stage of brain development and developmental delays lead to personal or social burdens, the early detection of childhood developmental disabilities is important. However, early screening for developmental disabilities has been a challenge because of the fear of positive results, expensive tests, differences in diagnosis depending on examiners’ abilities, and difficulty in diagnosis arising from the need for long-term follow-up observation.ObjectiveThis study aimed to assess the feasibility of using a serious game–derived index to identify heterogeneous developmental disabilities. This study also examines the correlation between the game-derived index and existing neuropsychological test results.MethodsThe randomized controlled trial involved 48 children with either normal development or developmental disabilities. In this clinical trial, we used 19 features (6 from the Korean-Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence, 8 from the Psychoeducational Profile Revised, 2 from the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency, Second Edition, and 3 from the Pediatric Evaluation of Disability Inventory) from neuropsychological tests and 9 (7 game scores, path accuracy, and completion rate) from the serious game, DoBrain. The following analysis was conducted based on participants’ baseline information and neuropsychological test and game-derived index data for one week: (1) we compared the baseline information between the normal development and developmental disabilities groups; (2) then we measured the correlation between the game-derived index and the neuropsychological test scores for each group; and (3) we built a classifier based on the game-derived index with a Gaussian process method and then compared the area under the curve (AUC) with a model based on neuropsychological test results.ResultsA total of 16 children (normal development=9; developmental disabilities=7) were analyzed after selection. Their developmental abilities were assessed before they started to play the serious games, and statistically significant differences were found in both groups. Specifically, the normal development group was more developed than the developmental disabilities group in terms of social function, gross motor function, full-scale IQ, and visual motor imitation, in that order. Similarly, the normal development group obtained a higher score on the game-derived index than the developmental disabilities group. In the correlation analysis between the game-derived index and the neuropsychological tests, the normal development group showed greater correlation with more variables than the developmental disabilities group. The game-derived index–based model had an AUC=0.9, a similar detection value as the neuropsychological test–based model’s AUC=0.86.ConclusionsA game-derived index based on serious games can detect children with heterogenous de...

Bibliometric and Content Analysis of Research Trends on the Use of Serious Games to Assist People with Disabilities

“…In addition, games, digital games, educational games, and video games, together, are the second most used set of author keywords. It can be inferred from this finding that the term "serious game" has been used in the majority of articles, especially in recent years (Bang et al, 2019;Faria et al, 2019;García-Redondo et al, 2019;Jaramillo-Alcázar et al, 2020;Lievense et al, 2019;Ronimus et al, 2020;Tang et al, 2019). Based on the bibliometric results, disability and rehabilitation are also among the most used author keywords.…”

“…Based on the findings of this study, the majority of the articles used quantitative methods. The literature shows that in recent years there has been an increasing number of quantitative studies focusing on the effects of serious games for people with different disabilities (Bang et al, 2019;van der Kuil et al, 2018). The findings also indicated that descriptive research methods as a non-experimental design and quasi-and true experimental research methods as experimental design were commonly used in quantitative design.…”

Digital Biomarkers for Well-being Through Exergame Interactions: Exploratory Study

“…Cognitive measures in game-like interfaces can contribute to the early detection of neurological disease [ 26 ]. The study by Bang et al [ 27 ] used an index calculated from in-game metrics to detect children with heterogeneous developmental disabilities, whereas the study by Kim et al [ 28 ] evaluated the use of kinetic variables from the interactions with an SG as a digital biomarker for developmental disabilities.…”

Efficacy of Mobile-Based Cognitive Training Program DoBrain in Preschool Children With or Without Developmental Disabilities: A Randomized, Single-Blind, Active-Controlled Trial

“…Recently, efforts have been made to develop cognitive training programs specifically for children with DD in addition to children with typical development [ 9 , 10 ]. DoBrain is a mobilebased cognitive training program designed for children with DD [ 11 ], and targets areas of primary cognitive capacity (attention, orientation, memory), higher-level thinking abilities (problem-solving, reasoning, concept formation), and metaprocessing abilities (executive function, self-awareness). The program consists of multiple levels of games with different levels of difficulty, and only requires simple screen touches as an input.…”