Implementing a serious game for children with autism in Palestine

Other Title(s)

بناء الألعاب التعليمية الهادفة للأطفال المصابين بالتوحد في فلسطين

Dissertant

Ihammudah, Wafa

Thesis advisor

Nawahdah, Mamun

University

Birzeit University

Faculty

Faculty of Engineering and Technology

Department

Department of Computer Science

University Country

Palestine (West Bank)

Degree

Master

Degree Date

2018

English Abstract

The purpose of this research is to identify the effectiveness of using the developed serious game in empowering social and communication skills of children with autism.

Autism as one of the most common disorder which is rapidly increasing in many countries[51].

Often, it is difficult for children with autism to communicate well and normally interact with others.

In this thesis, we have developed a serious game to help children with autism to overcome their social and communication problems.

The game is implemented based on PECS system which is the most popular intervention system for improving communication and social skills for children with autism, the PECS phases have been gradually applied and mapped to the game levels and sub-levels.

In the game design phase, we started by studying the requirements of autism disorder followed by collecting information and data about the participants and suggestions from the therapists and speech language pathologist ended with conducting experiment to investigate our research questions.

Three ways were used to collect the data.

The first one, collecting real-time data directly from the game presented by targeted variables such as ,response time, playing duration,etc to our server database.

The second, observational variables which have been collected by using camera and notes from experimenter and therapist who have attended the game, post-test sessions.

Finally, the questionnaire data which was distributed to twenty specialists in two autism centers in Palestine.

The experiment results showed a positive impact in promoting children with autism motor skills, their interactive functionality.

Paired t-test results showed a significant difference between pretest and post-test on achievement language skills, which proved the effectiveness of the game in improving the language skills in requesting, rejecting, etc.

Related to the social impact; the observational data showed the ability of the game in encouraging the social behaviors such as exchanging eye contact and asking for help.

In addition, the results from the collaboration levels showed the game ability in getting intentional communication to play it and stimulates the emergence of behaviors lacking in the children with autism.

Out of the specialists’ answers the majority of them confirmed the ability of the game in enjoying children with autism.

Also, they see the ability of the game in helping them to overcome on communication and social problems that they faced in their daily life.

The developed game is an educational game with educational target by containing educational roles based on PECS and attractive factors.

Educational roles are given in a form of visual scanning, matching, ability to distinguish, build a complete sentence based on functional communication skills, ask and comments.

Main Subjects

Psychology
Information Technology and Computer Science

Topics

• Children
• Autism
• Palestine
• Electronic games

No. of Pages

73

Table of Contents

• APA
• MLA
• AMA

Language

English

Data Type

Arab Theses

Record ID

BIM-836450