This document discusses the development of a mobile game called Blitzmerker to help children with autism spectrum disorder learn idioms. The game aims to improve social skills through engaging storylines that teach the meanings of proverbs. An evaluation with 12 children found they were highly motivated to play and better understood idioms afterwards. Logging of gameplay provided insights to further improve the game's design and content.
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Autism and Social Interaction – The Problem
lutherwood.ca/
Autism Spectrum Disorder
Most common cognitive disability
Prevalence rate of 1 in 88 children
Mainly affects social skills, communication
skills and interests
Deficits in Social Interaction
Lack knowledge of how to properly
interact
Lose motivation in social interaction
Develop social anxiety One factor: inability
to understand abstract concepts during
conversations difficulty responding to
metaphors and symbols
msnkarthik.com
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Understanding Proverbs
In German: Die Kuh vom Eis holen.
What it means: Escape a risky situation.
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Autism and Social Interaction – Intervention
behaviorfrontiers.com
Training Social Skills
Improvement in response to exposure and
training
But: decreased motivation increases social
gap Early Intervention to avoid escalation
ABA: Applied Behavioral Therapy -
individualized coaching via therapists
Why Simulations and Games?
Training social skills in non-real world
situations
Encouraging environments with reduced
risk of failure and quick reward [1,2]
Inherently interesting for Autistic children
[3]
Less expensive for everyday use [4] tdlc.ucsd.edu
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Software for Autism
Teachtown.com
Success
Popular applications more accessible to a
wider audience [4]
Practicing social and cognitive skills shown
to be effective [5]
use of multimedia to simulate real-life
situations shows positive effects [4]
Design Requirements
Using motivating visual and auditory
stimuli [5,6]
Adaptive, individualized training [7,8]
Different Configuration Options [8,9]
Progress Statistics and Parent/Teacher
Dashboards
Teachtown.c
om
socialcluesgame.com
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Blitzmerker
Idea
Learning the meanings of different proverbs
Engaging in conversations with different
characters
Quizzes and additional info to improve
understanding
Features
Available for German and English Idioms
Extendable to other languages:
Conversations in xml format
Difficulty Adaptations
Different stories for longer engagement
Encouraging Feedback and Hints
Sound Effects and Interactive Elements
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Blitzmerker – Story Structure
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Personalization
Configuration Options
Profiles for different users
Choosing Language
Background Image and Music
Color of Text and Buttons
Choose Character
Use Photo as Avatar
Reading Conversations Aloud
Parental Control Options
Set maximum playing time per day
Adapt Feedback and Toggle Sound
Adding timers and bonus points
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Logging
Logged Data
Path in the story from start to end
Tapped points on the screen
Time required for each section
Total time played
Attempts to select the right answer
Time needed for each answer
Interruptions of gameplay
Benefits
provide insights for both game design and
player progress evaluation
Insight into game settings, tapped points,
story paths and learning progress
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Evaluation
Field Study
12 Children aged 8 to 16
With parents and teachers
Played on Android tablet devices
Questionnaires before and after playing
Observations by researcher and logging
statistics
Expert Evaluation
Teachers and therapists who were also
involved in data collection and game
design
Interviews, attending and observing field
studies and filling out questionnaires
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Evaluation – Results
Observations
no difficulty to interact, experience with
mobile devices
motivated each other, compared
achievements and discussed the stories
they played
Showed strong interest and wanted to
continue playing at home
Some design improvements suggested
Questionnaires and Logging
Differences in Abilities and Preferences
high rating for the idea, audio,
comprehensibility and ease of use
Goog rating for content, graphics, control
and fun
75% learned new idioms
Improvements in new iterations
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Game available on Google Play
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References
[1] Mitchell, P., Parsons, S., & Leonard, A. (2007). Using virtual environments for teaching social understanding to
adolescents with autistic spectrum disorders. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 37(3), 589-600.
[2] Kandalaft, M. R., Didehbani, N., Krawczyk, D. C., Allen, T. T., & Chapman, S. B. (2013). Virtual reality social
cognitiontraining for young adults with high-functioning autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders,
43(1), 34-44.
[3] Boelte, S. (2009). [The ICF and its meaning for child and adolescent psychiatry]. Zeitschrift fur Kinder-und
Jugendpsychiatrie und Psychotherapie, 37(6), 495-497.
[4] Wainer, A. L., & Ingersoll, B. R. (2011). The use of innovative computer technology for teaching social communication to
individuals with autism spectrum disorders. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 5(1), 96-107.
[5] Rayner, C., Denholm, C., & Sigafoos, J. (2009). Video-based intervention for individuals with autism: Key questions that
remain unanswered. Research in Autism Spectrum Disor-ders, 3(2), 291-303.
[6] Burckley, E., Tincani, M., & Guld Fisher, A. (2014). An iPad™-based picture and video activity schedule increases
community shopping skills of a young adult with autism spec-trum disorder and intellectual disability. Developmental
neurorehabilitation, (0), 1-6.
[7] Shane, H. C., & Albert, P. D. (2008). Electronic screen media for persons with autism spectrum disorders: Results of a
survey. Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 38(8), 1499-1508.
[8] Sehaba, K., Estraillier, P., and Lambert, D.. Interactive educational games for autistic chil-dren with agent-based system.
In Fumio Kishino, Yoshifumi Kitamura, Hirokazu Kato, and Noriko Nagata, editors, Entertainment Computing -
ICEC 2005, volume 3711 of Lec-ture Notes in Computer Science, pages 422–432. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2005.
ISBN 978-3-540-29034-6
[9] Paron-Wildes, A.J.. Sensory Stimulation and Autistic Children. In Implications: A News-letter by Informedesign. Vol. 06
Issue 04, 2007.