Designing an augmented tabletop game for children with cognitive disabilities: The “Home game” case

Abstract

This paper presents “Home game,” a multimodal interactive educational game that supports training in independent living for children with cognitive disabilities. It is intended to be used under the supervision of educators in a rehabilitation center. The game features a variety of exercises that incorporate multimedia, virtual environments, tangible, and playful interaction to facilitate learning of the main rooms of a house, daily routines, and how to avoid inappropriate or prevent hazardous behaviors. It enhances touch‐based interaction with physical manipulation through printed cards on a tabletop setup, using a webcam to recognize and track cards on a board. This paper describes the system, along with the development process and the results of a preliminary user‐based evaluation. Furthermore, it reports the insights and lessons learned throughout the process of developing tangible educational technologies for children with cognitive impairments, in terms of functionality, interaction, and evaluation with children.

Impact of Assistive Technologies to Inclusive Education and Independent Life of Down Syndrome Persons: A Systematic Literature Review and Research Agenda

“…Cognitive and memory impairments are also common, and they are examined in more detail in the studies: [17,27,61,63,64,[67][68][69]71,73,76,79].…”

“…Selected papers cover the complete life cycle of improving these related impairments, starting with the creation of the didactic scenario intended to support educational intervention [68], through planning innovative strategies [73], designing of the digital assistant [79], customization of user-friendly environments to support learning [71] and supporting learning with board [61], tablet [66,67], video [64] and mobile games [17].…”

“…Edutainment as an educational form of using video games is presented in the studies: [30,64,67,69,71,75]. The first paper presents a platform for delivering accessible games for enhancing cognitive learning and training [71].…”

A review of augmented reality in educational applications

“…Visual appeal and visual aids are also effective in AR games. They were reported in one article: "All the students that played the ARC expressed that they liked the pictures and animations embedded in the game, and they believed that the multimedia could help them to understand tasks or texts" [22]. The same article mentioned that AR games obviously improved collaborative learning: "There were obvious improvements in the students' collaborative learning competency after the ARC game playing" [23].…”

Examining Board Gameplay and Learning: A Multidisciplinary Review of Recent Research

“…Hence, board games such as Monopoly, Poker, Dungeons and Dragons, and Pandemic fall under the broad umbrella of tabletop games. However, tabletop games can also be augmented with digital elements such as touchscreen (Haller et al, 2010; Korozi et al, 2018), while providing collocated and face-to-face interactions (Mahmud et al, 2010). In sum, tabletop games refer to games played on tabletops, face-to-face, with tangible pieces that could include touchscreens.…”