A serious web game for children with attentive disorders: design and experiences from two trials

Cognitive developmental disorders are common in children and can affect various abilities. Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is the most prevalent childhood psychiatric condition. This work presents PlayToPickUp, a serious game that aims to stimulate children in relevant cognitive doma...

Full description

Saved in:

Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Human-computer interaction Vol. 39; no. 1-2; pp. 43 - 78
Main Authors:	Angileri, Letizia, Manca, Marco, Paternò, Fabio, Santoro, Carmen
Format:	Journal Article
Language:	English
Published:	Hillsdale Taylor & Francis 03-03-2024 Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects:	ADHD Caregivers Children cognitive training Computer & video games Disorders Educational software field trials Games serious games Training
Online Access:	Get full text
Tags:	Add Tag No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!

Description
Summary:	Cognitive developmental disorders are common in children and can affect various abilities. Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is the most prevalent childhood psychiatric condition. This work presents PlayToPickUp, a serious game that aims to stimulate children in relevant cognitive domains (attention and error monitoring). A multidisciplinary team of experts and caregivers from two different centers that support therapeutic activities with such children participated from the games's inception to the design and the evaluation of the game. Depending on the characteristics and abilities of the player, therapists can customize the game to provide training that best fits the skills and the needs of the child while maintaining the player's motivation. After its development, the game was used over 2 months "in the wild" by children recruited by the two centers. In one case the children played with it within the regular activities offered by the training center. In the other one, the parents of the children were instructed by caregivers to have the children play the game at home. In the paper, we describe the experience gathered from such two studies run in parallel, discussing the aspects that worked better, those that represented difficulties, and the lesson learnt for future studies.
ISSN:	0737-0024 1532-7051
DOI:	10.1080/07370024.2023.2240797