Engaging Children in Play Therapy: The Coupling of Virtual Reality Games with Social Robotics

Abstract

Individuals who have impairments in their motor skills typically engage in rehabilitation protocols to improve the recovery of their motor functions. In general, engaging in physical therapy can be tedious and difficult, which can result in demotivating the individual. This is especially true for children who are more susceptible to frustration. Thus, different virtual reality environments and play therapy systems have been developed with the goal of increasing the motivation of individuals engaged in physical therapy. However, although previously developed systems have proven to be effective for the general population, the majority of these systems are not focused on engaging children. Given this motivation, we discuss two technologies that have been shown to positively engage children who are undergoing physical therapy. The first is called the Super Pop VR TM game; a virtual reality environment that not only increases the child's motivation to continue with his/her therapy exercises, but also provides feedback and tracking of patient performance during game play. The second technology integrates robotics into the virtual gaming scenario through social engagement in order to further maintain the child's attention when engaged with the system. Results from preliminary studies with typically-developing children have shown their effectiveness. In this chapter, we discuss the functions and advantages of these technologies, and their potential for being integrated into the child's intervention protocol.

Home Rehabilitation Based on Gamification and Serious Games for Young People: A Systematic Mapping Study

“…There are some examples of systems in this line of work. In this context, García-Vergara et al [24] describes a virtual reality environment in which children rehabilitate their motor functions blowing virtual bubbles on a monitor with their hands. In [25], adolescents are motivated by simulating everyday activities, which are replicated by a virtual avatar.…”

Therapeutic extended reality.

“…Therapeutic XR has been found to be an important tool for play therapy and in other therapeutic activities when used with specific approaches for development of self-expression, social competency, and moral development (Barajas et al, 2017;García-Vergara et al, 2014;Riva, 2005). In addition, it allows therapists to experience firsthand the strategies and approaches a child may use to self-regulate or manage stress.…”

Developing a baseline for upper-body motor skill assessment using a robotic kinematic model

“…In order to enable collection of a non-biased data collection process for the randomized trails, we employed a platform called Super Pop VR TM [23], [24], a motivating virtual reality game used to track upper-body movements using the Kinect camera from Microsoft. The objective of the Super Pop VR TM game is to pop random bubbles that appear on screen; for the user, the execution of a reaching movement is necessary to successfully reach for and pop the 'bubble' (Figure 6).…”