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Touchless Motion-Based Interaction for Therapy of Autistic Children

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Virtual, Augmented Reality and Serious Games for Healthcare 1

Part of the book series: Intelligent Systems Reference Library ((ISRL,volume 68))

Abstract

Autism is a pervasive developmental disorder characterized by abnormal behaviors along multiple dimensions (socialization, communication, and imagination). An increasing number of technologies devoted to children with autism have appeared in the research arena and the marketplace. Our interest is on interactive tools that exploit motion-based touchless interaction, where technology can be controlled using body movements and gestures without wearing additional aides (e.g., data gloves, head mounted display, remote controllers, or body markers). In spite of the increasing popularity of this interaction paradigm, its adoption in therapeutic and educational contexts for autistic children is very limited and research in this domain is still in its infancy. The chapter provides an overview of the current state of the art and describes a field study and that explores the benefits of motion-based touchless gaming for autistic children with low-moderate cognitive deficit, low-medium sensory-motor dysfunction, and motor autonomy. Our findings show that motion-based touchless gaming led to improvements of attention skills for all participants to own study, and suggest future research directions in interactive technology for autistic children.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Although we use the term “autism” throughout this chapter, people with autism are a very heterogeneous group, and it is more appropriate to use the term Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) which acknowledges the fact that autism occurs in differing degrees and in a variety of forms [6].

  2. 2.

    Embodiment is defined as the way an organism’s sensorimotor capacities enable it to successfully interact with the physical environment.

  3. 3.

    While engagement is considered a facilitators of learning processes for regular children, for autistic children it be regarded as a learning benefit per se, because of the deficit of these subjects in the emotional sphere and the abnormal way they relate themselves to the surrounding world.

  4. 4.

    Video recording of the sixth meeting was not analysed as games were chosen by the children and stimuli were therefore heterogeneous in the different subjects.

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Acknowledgments

This work is partially supported by the European Commission under grants “M4ALL-Motion Based Interaction for All” (# 2012-3969-531219—Life Long Learning Program 2012) and “Playful Learning on The Cloud” (#SSP13049 EIT ICT LABS Program 2013). The authors are grateful to the children and families from Associazione Astrolabio who participated in our study. We thank Dr. Rivarola from Centro Benedetta D’Intino in Milano for her valuable insights.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronics, Information and Bioengineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy

    Franca Garzotto & Matteo Valoriani

  2. Associazione Astrolabio, Florence, Italy

    Laura Bartoli

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  1. Franca Garzotto
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  2. Matteo Valoriani
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  3. Laura Bartoli
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Correspondence to Franca Garzotto .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Digital Design Studio, Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, United Kingdom

    Minhua Ma

  2. Faculty of Education, Science, Technology & Mathematics, University of Canberra, Canberra, Australia

    Lakhmi C. Jain

  3. Digital Design Studio, Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow, United Kingdom

    Paul Anderson

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Garzotto, F., Valoriani, M., Bartoli, L. (2014). Touchless Motion-Based Interaction for Therapy of Autistic Children. In: Ma, M., Jain, L., Anderson, P. (eds) Virtual, Augmented Reality and Serious Games for Healthcare 1. Intelligent Systems Reference Library, vol 68. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-54816-1_23

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-54816-1_23

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