Design of a tablet game to assess the hand movement in children with autism

Abstract

The high rate of atypical handedness and motor deficits among the children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) have been repeatedly reported. Recently, tablet-assisted systems are increasingly applied to ASD interventions due to their potential benefits in terms of accessibility, cost and the ability to engage many children with ASD. In this paper, we propose the design of a tablet game system to assess the hand usage in movement manipulations of children with ASD. To play the games designed in this system, it requires good eye-hand coordination, precise and quick hand movements and cooperation with partners. The games can be played by one player using two hands or by two players each of whom using one hand. We present the system design and a small preliminary usability study that verified the system functionality in recording objective performance data for offline analysis of the hand usage of the players. Results showed that the proposed system was engaging to children with ASD and their TD (i.e. typically developing) peers, and could induce collaborative activities between them. The system was also shown to efficiently evaluate the usages of the dominant hand and the non-dominant hand of the users. We found that children with ASD showed different patterns of hand usage behaviors from the TD participants when using this system.