Developing Adaptive Serious Games for Children With Specific Learning Difficulties: A Two-phase Usability and Technology Acceptance Study

Abstract

Background Specific learning difficulties (SpLD) include several disorders such as dyslexia, dyscalculia, and dysgraphia, and the children with these SpLD receive special education. However, the studies and the educational material so far focus mainly on one specific disorder. Objective This study’s primary goal is to develop comprehensive training material for different types of SpLD, with five serious games addressing different aspects of the SpLD. The second focus is measuring the impact of adaptive difficulty level adjustment in the children’s and their educators’ usability and technology acceptance perception. Receiving feedback from the children and their educators, and refining the games according to their suggestions have also been essential in this two-phase study. Methods A total of 10 SpLD educators and 23 children with different types of SpLD tested the prototypes of the five serious games (ie, Word game, Memory game, Category game, Space game, and Math game), gave detailed feedback, answered the System Usability Scale and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) questionnaires, and applied think-aloud protocols during game play. Results The games’ standard and adaptive versions were analyzed in terms of average playtime and the number of false answers. Detailed analyses of the interviews, with word clouds and player performances, were also provided. The TAM questionnaires’ average and mean values and box plots of each data acquisition session for the children and the educators were also reported via System Usability Scale and TAM questionnaires. The TAM results of the educators had an average of 8.41 (SD 0.87) out of 10 in the first interview and an average of 8.71 (SD 0.64) out of 10 in the second interview. The children had an average of 9.07 (SD 0.56) out of 10 in the first interview. Conclusions Both the educators and the children with SpLD enjoyed playing the games, gave positive feedback, and suggested new ways for improvement. The results showed that these games provide thorough training material for different types of SpLD with personalized and tailored difficulty systems. The final version of the proposed games will become a part of the special education centers’ supplementary curriculum and training materials, making new enhancements and improvements possible in the future.

Visualization and Interaction Technologies in Serious and Exergames for Cognitive Assessment and Training: A Survey on Available Solutions and Their Validation

“…In the first case, the user is required to handle a device and apply a physical pressure to a surface to trigger events. Whereas, in the second case, [2], [4], [5], [7], [10], [11], [18], [22], [24], [25], [28], [30], [34], [45], [51], [53], [60]- [121] 79 Mobile devices [13], [16], [19], [26], [31], [36], [37], [39], [41], [43], [44], [59],…”

“…As participants could suffer from visual and hearing problems or have troubles with atten- tion, visual scenes have to be as simple as possible and search space should be reduced. During gameplay, simple and immediate data as a countdown timer, the number of remained chances to guess an answer, the current score or achieved goals are often shown to incentive the subject to answer as quickly and accurately as possible [3], [14], [17], [19], [20], [22], [24], [26], [28]- [31], [33], [38]- [41], [44], [49], [50], [52], [53], [71], [72], [79], [83], [96], [97], [99], [100], [106], [109], [115], [120], [124], [125], [130]- [132], [137], [138], [142], [150], [161], [164], [179], [191], [209], [211], [212], [231],…”

“…Immediate feedback after actions can also be useful, as it could help the users knowing when they succeeded or failed and why, recognizing their errors, recovering strategies, reducing their frustration and increasing their motivation. To this purpose, multimodal feedback are often provided, through congratulation messages, hints or events, like objects disappearing if correctly selected or sounds of clapping hands to highlight the correctness of a given answer [4]- [6], [13], [20], [41], [43], [50], [57], [59], [106], [112], [125], [133], [162], [208], [210]- [212]. Finally, since the benefits of cognitive training might only be noticed in the long term, healthy competition is greatly appreciated as it can positively affect patients psychological well-being and promote social networking.…”

“…Touchscreen surface [3]- [5], [7], [13], [16], [19], [21], [26], [31]- [33], [36], [37], [39], [41], [43], [44], [48], [50], [58], [59], [85], [118], [121]- [127], [129]- [145], [160]- [168], [199], [225], [232] 60…”

“…[77] EEG [2], [53], [75], [93], [110] Treadmill/pressure plate/cycle ergometer [22], [88], [94] [13], [19], [26], [31], [36], [37], [39], [41], [43], [44], [122]- [124], [126], [127], [3], [21], [32], [33], [48], [144], [160], [162]- [168] Touchful and body tracking [38], [40] VR Semi-Immersive Driving simulator Driving tool [170], [171]…”