Designing a serious game for independent living skills in special education

Abstract

The transition from school life to independent living is an important and demanding step for every person. People with Intellectual Disability (ID) and people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) face more difficulties in this transition due to their limitations in daily living skills. Serious Games (SGs) are considered as a promising tool that can support the acquisition of such skills. The aim of this paper is to present the design of a new set of mini games that aim to support people with ID and ASD in acquiring skills for independent living, such as self-care, transportation and safety. Participatory design is considered important for designing serious games for the specific target group and in this sense it is our aim to incorporate anyone interested in the design process of the new game. The skills that we will try to incorporate in the game are examined in the context of the existing literature, a survey with special education professionals and teachers, as well as experts in the field. The proposed game is analyzed based on guidelines for designing SGs targeted to people with ID and ASD that were extracted in previous work based on a critical review of existing literature and SGs. Based on this previous work we concluded that although people with ID and ASD have differences, SGs that are targeted to them have many common features. Our hypothesis is that with a careful design and certain mechanisms for adapting the proposed SG to the special needs of people with ID and ASD, the same SG can be successfully used with both groups. The goal of the SG is to provide a personalized and entertaining experience to the players that would enhance the learning process of independent living skills, as well as providing an outline of a new design framework for SGs targeted to people with ID and ASD.