Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Interactive fruit panel (IFP): a tangible serious game for children with special needs to learn an alternative communication system

  • Long Paper
  • Published:
Universal Access in the Information Society Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

After several months working with Mateo, a child with special needs, the therapist of the Early Childhood Treatment Center (ECTC) was astonished by how the child correctly associated the fruits with the corresponding pictograms. This was after only a few sessions using the interactive fruit panel presented in this article. The interactive application described in this article is a way to digitize a game commonly used by ECTC therapists to help children to associate real objects (fruits in this case) with their graphical representation (pictogram) in a therapeutic activity using real objects as the interactive basis. This article describes the proposed system and analyzes the results obtained from a pilot test with real participants in collaboration with professionals from ECTC. Moreover, an empirical research has been conducted to study the benefits of the alternative communication system. The experimental research results show how the interactive panel helps children with special needs to achieve learning goals more quickly and how it enhances their attention.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
Fig. 15
Graph 1
Graph 2
Graph 3
Graph 4
Graph 5

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Read, J.C., Hourcade, J.P., Markopoulos, P., Antle, A.N., Parés, N.: Child computer interaction. In: CHI 2008, April 5–April 10. ACM 978-1-60558-012-8/08/04, Florence, Italy (2008)

  2. (GAT), Federación Estatal de Asociaciones de Profesionales de Temprana, Libro Blanco de la Atención Temprana—55/2005, Madrid: Real Patronato sobre Discapacidad. (Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Sociales) (2011)

  3. Marshall, P.: Do tangible interfaces enhance. In: TEI’07 (2007)

  4. Carreras, A., Parés, N.: Diseño de una instalación interactiva destinada a enseñar conceptos abstractos. In: AIPO (2007)

  5. Hunter, S., Kalanithi, J., Merrill, D.: Make a Riddle and TeleStory: designing children’s applications for the siftables platform. In: Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC’10), pp. 206–209. (2010) Doi:10.1145/1810543.1810572. http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/1810543.1810572

  6. Altema, ATELMA (ASOCIACIÓN TRASTORNO ESPECIFICO DEL LENGUAJE DE MADRID). http://www.atelma.es/. Accessed 2 Sept 2014

  7. A. E. S. d. Down, “DOWN,”. http://www.sindromedown.net/. Accessed 3 Sept 2014

  8. A. A. d. Psiquiatría: Guía de consulta de los criterios diagnósticos del DSM-V. American Psychiatric Publishing, Arlington (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Benton, L., Jhonson, H., Ashwing, E., Brosnan, M., Grawemeyer, B.: Developing IDEAS: supporting children with autism within a participatory design team. In: CHI, Mayo (2012)

  10. Hourcade, J. P., Bullock-Rest, N. E., Hansen, T. E.: Multitouch tablet applications and activities to enhance the social skills of children with autism spectrum disorders. In: Personal and Ubiquitous Computing (2012) Doi:10.1007/s00779-011-0383-3

  11. Alqahtani, A., Jaafar, N., Alfadda, N.: Interactive speech based games for autistic children with asperger syndrome. In: IEEE, no. 978-1-4673-0098-8/11 (2011)

  12. Hourcade, J.P., Williams, S.R., Miller, E.A., Huebner, K.E., Liang, L.J.: Evaluation of tablet apps to encourage social interaction in children with autism spectrum disorders. In: CHI 2013: Changing Perspectives, Paris (2013)

  13. Pyramid Educational Consultants, Inc (PECS), Marzo (2015). http://www.pecs-spain.com/

  14. Freitas, S.: Learning in immersive worlds. A review of game-based learning. In: JISC e-learning programme (2006)

  15. Blunt, R.: Does game-based learning work? Results from three recent studies. In: eLearn Magazine. Education and Technology in Perspective (2009)

  16. Backlund, P., Engström, H., Jonhannesson, M., Lebram, M.: Games for traffic education: an experimental study of a game-based driving simulator. Simul. Gaming 41, 145–169 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. González-González, C., Blanco-Izquierdo, F.: Designing Social Videogames for Educational Uses, pp. 0360–1315. Elsevier Ltd., Amsterdam (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  18. De la Guía, E., Lozano, M. D., Penichet, V. R.: Cognitive rehabilitation based on collaborative and tangible computer games. In: 7th International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare (PervasiveHealth), pp. 389–392 (2013)

  19. Durrant, A., Hook, J., McNaney, R., Williams, K., Smith, T., Kipling, M., Stockman, T., Olivier, P.: Design to support interpersonal communication in the special educational needs classroom. In: Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children, pp. 46–55 (2013)

  20. Doenyasa, C., Şimdi, E., Özca, E. C., Çataltepe, Z.: Autism and tablet computers in Turkey: teaching picture sequencing skills via a web-based iPad application. Int. J. Child-Comput. Interact. 2(1), 60–71 (2014)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Portal Aragonés de la Comunicación Aumentativa y Alternativa, Febrero catedu.es/arasaac/ (2015)

  22. Sweetser, P., Wyeth, P.: GameFlow: a model for evaluating player enjoyment in games. ACM Comput. Entertain. 3, 1–24 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. MIT—Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Febrero https://scratch.mit.edu/ (2015)

  24. Grupo Lifelong Kindergarten del Laboratorio de Medios del MIT, Febrero https://scratch.mit.edu/ (2015)

  25. CC, Arduino, Febrero http://arduino.cc/en/Main/ArduinoBoardDue (2015)

  26. J. LLC, “Makey Makey,” http://www.makeymakey.com/ (2012). Accessed 16 Marzo 2015

  27. Lazar, J., Heidi Feng, J., Hochheiser, H.: Research Methods in Human–Computer Interaction. Wiley, Hoboken (2010)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to the Asprodiq Childhood Development and Early Intervention Centre of Toledo (Spain). This project has been partially supported by the UCLM Grant ref. 01110G4003.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Escuela Superior de Ingeniería Informática de Albacete, University of Castilla-La Mancha, Campus Universitario s/n, 02071, Albacete, Spain

    Iván Durango, Alicia Carrascosa, Jose A. Gallud & Victor M. R. Penichet

Authors
  1. Iván Durango
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Alicia Carrascosa
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Jose A. Gallud
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Victor M. R. Penichet
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jose A. Gallud.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Durango, I., Carrascosa, A., Gallud, J.A. et al. Interactive fruit panel (IFP): a tangible serious game for children with special needs to learn an alternative communication system. Univ Access Inf Soc 17, 51–65 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-016-0517-5

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10209-016-0517-5

Keywords

Search

Navigation