Teamwork Adventure Game for children with ASD
Rewire is a compilation of video games which helps people with Autism Spectrum Disorder build teamwork and communication skills.
This story is a part of the Rewire.Education cycle. In order to understand what it’s all about better, you can read the introduction here.
Rewire.Education — 3 stories from teachers, who made video games for autistic students
Rewire is a compilation of video games which helps people with Autism Spectrum Disorder build teamwork and…blog.luden.io
Teamwork Adventure Game
All teacher’s guides, exercises and games teachers requested us to develop are accessible to everyone at Rewire.Education.
What is it: A local co-op game for 2 players sharing a PC or a tablet, that proves that if you work together, you can achieve more even if you are drastically different people. Players’ actions are defined and executed as a set of commands. This way, the players get acquainted with the simplest programming concepts.
How does it work: At the beginning of the game, each player is independent. The game gets more and more difficult with time, and in the process of playing, players learn to come to a compromise, and after that — to complement each other. A teacher plays with one or two children.
What we wanted to achieve: We wanted each of the players to grow interested in one another, no matter who they are — a teacher or a student. This way, we wanted to make players negotiate with each other and train their communication and shared attention skills.
How did it go: Project initiator — Vsevolod Orlyanskiy, special pedagogy and cognitive development curator
How and why did you get an idea to make a separate new game for children with ASD?
Children with ASD have a need for communication, even if it may seem otherwise from the outside. But they require special conditions for this since most often they do not have enough experience to initiate communication. Also, self-regulation does not work well for them, which is why it is also difficult to generalize activities to some quick decisions. As a result, they most often just stand still and watch or perform other actions that are not related to communication.
Nevertheless, if we provide them with an acceptable, understandable environment, they can find contact in it and start to productively interact. Games are one of the reasons why people group together, communicate and make contact. I decided that such an experience would be doubly useful from the point of general development view — thinking, mental functions… In the game, you can interact with someone: in addition to interacting with the game itself, you can play in co-op. Two people will be making decisions together and it will be their experience of jointly overcoming difficulties and resolving issues. People have been doing this for their entire history: they jointly solve issues and tasks.
And in those games that you used before — what did they lack, what did you want to add in them?
All games that exist are initially made with a different goal. They are designed for an activity for the sake of activity. This is the reason why they can not always be a binding tool [in working with people with ASD] since they need to be processed: you need to simplify them, add a few self-made elements. There are games that do not require a lot of alterations, there are games that need a lot. Therefore, it makes sense to have a more universal tool at hand, but then this mechanism needs to be done with my very own hands.
I was always interested in the game development industry, at one time I even thought about becoming a programmer, maybe a game designer, but it was 2009 and becoming a programmer was such a popular future career option that I decided that I didn’t want to do the same as everybody else. During the hi-tech era, you can not avoid it in any way, but I’ve somehow managed not to tie my life with it…
And certainly, digital technologies are more adaptive for our children, because the basic rule of all technologies is that they should be intuitive. Our children are markers themselves: if it is intuitive, then a child with ASD will use it and will want more. That is why they prefer technology and programs over things from real life.
Initially, the goals [in the development of the game] we set were: first of all, divided attention, that is, attention to the companion you are playing with. We also set a goal of developing voluntary activity, since it is necessary to regulate where you click, the sequence with which you click, who is the first, who is the second. It is also important to develop tactical thinking because if its elements are inherent in our children, they do not fully develop it. And, of course, communication development.
As a result, we’ve noticed that our subjects’ voluntary activity developed nicely. We ran experiments with Petya and Egor [in teacher plus student format]. At first, they poorly explained what they wanted and who pressed what, but after a series of sessions, they became initiating a lot more often. They initially expected that we would start to do something, and they would join if they got interested. At the first session, this is understandable, because the child does not know what is in front of them and what to do with it. But on the second and third sessions, it remained the same — they still waited. And during the last sessions, they almost immediately began to do something themselves, and our task was only to regulate their actions. It became possible to conduct a dialogue with them, which is very important.
What changed after playing the game?
Prior to that, their attention was drawn not even to the tablet, but to some things from the environment. Over time, they became to watch and process what was happening on the tablet itself more closely. Petya hasn’t been paying close attention to it all the time, but most of the time he still monitored what was happening and provided us feedback. When we completed the last levels, he was really happy about it. He showed that he was pleased that everything had worked out for us. Moreover, he did not always give an emotional response before. And back then he smiled, despite the fact that he rarely smiles when he is pleased with his activities.
Egor and Petya are bright representatives of people with ASD: they are people of a very uneven development type. Their mental ratio is slightly off but at a fairly good level. At the same time, their emotional-volitional sphere, — which is responsible for controlling their activities, making responses and showing emotions, — is strongly delayed in development compared to the other development spheres. This is a fairly common trait of children with ASD, so I chose them. They are similar in rarely taking the initiative. The generalization of their activity occurs only on the most significant things — these are, as a rule, need for food and some small stimulating things: for example, tearing a piece of paper apart. Otherwise, their activities are regulated externally. Moreover, they both can speak: Petya is on a higher level, he can express himself in whole sentences, and Egor tries to express himself in parts of words, yet he tries hard and wants to be understood. They are already young adults, — puberty has passed, — so their limitations won’t be regulated at the same extent as before adulthood.
In your opinion, how clearly did they understand the plot background of what was going on? Their journeys, battles, and etc.?
As far as I know them… But I know them from different angles — in our ‘Sunny World center’, we preach complex rehabilitation, meaning that the children do not only come to my classes, but also to other specialists’. We communicate with each other and I see that Egor and Petya take in a lot and are ready to insert it into their picture of the world. Of course, they do not take all the nuances into account due to a number of reasons, but they take note of some basic things and certainly gain experience and receive information that later may be needed. Most likely, they understood the general concept — that we are going on an adventure and a hike — but some nuances about who their characters were, who the main villain was and what the general plotline was all about can, unfortunately, be understood only partially. To process it out, a separate study, separate sessions are required. For example, we have a session with a game, and there is a session without a game, which can have a roleplaying component, but it probably doesn’t really make sense. After all, we need a plot as a component that will make children more involved into the game, but if they are already involved and carry out activities, then, probably, the need [in the plot] is reduced.
You said that after the game sessions Egor made progress in another exercise, in which you outline cells in a notebook with a pen.
Egor made huge progress regarding this matter. I can’t connect it with all the factors completely, but it happened right after we started trying the game. And it is highly likely that this is also the reason behind it, since it is difficult for them to press the buttons [on the screen], meaning that the synthesis of attention is very intensively stimulated. His graphomotor skills improved. Before that, he wrote slovenly, did not follow the notebook cells and his handwriting was worse than required. However, after the game session, his handwriting drastically improved, he began to write in smaller print and in more detail, and the issue of ignoring cells almost vanished.
How do you assess the potential of video games in working with children with ASD?
I believe that games not simply can, but must be included in our work. We can’t run away from technology, we can’t ban it or build an iron wall to hide from it. Children with ASD are still drawn to it. And why should we prohibit them from playing games when we can just build the right environment?
Every day, hundreds of new games get released.
Does it make sense to do separate projects for children with ASD?
Of course! They must prepare the children for the main environment. For example, we have schools and preschools. The same thing can be done with games: if our children play them for too long, it can become a problem since they will grow more distracted from the outside world. But at the same time, there is a high chance that this will encourage them to communicate with the outside world, at least with people who also play games. Twitch-broadcasts, reviews and etc. Sometimes the interest in something can be so strong that all the annoying factors are no longer of particular importance. Like, for example, when you take out just cooked food from the oven, it may be too hot for you, but you will try not to drop it anyway because you want to eat it.
How did it go: told by Dmitry Sviridov, ‘Special Education’ program specialist in ‘Our Sunny World’ center
Unlike the students Vsevolod is working with, you work with a younger audience. In your opinion, how much are they driven into this abstraction and the game of knights and dragons?
Everything is extremely variable. It depends on the individual characteristics of the children. For example, boy named Boris: he is 5 years old, his intellectual abilities are close to the age norm, but he shrinks into his shell, gets distracted by external sensory factors and it is difficult for him to stay in some activity at the table for longer than several minutes — he needs some action full of emotions. Accordingly, we used the method that I already spoke about with him: we went outside the table, made our way through the cabinets, chairs and so on to the endpoint — the battlefield in the tablet. He was definitely fascinated by the plot and he tracked the end goal. We tried to play during a group lesson with another child (Alexey, 7 years old), and boys interacted by requesting help from one another. Alexey sat at the table and interacted directly with the tablet, with characters and the combat system, but since it is impossible to win on one’s own (the game is designed to be played by 2 players at a time), he constantly asked Boris for help, who was enthusiastically overcoming the obstacles on the way to the table with the tablet. As a result, the goal was achieved, the enemy was defeated, and they did it together, as a team. Well done, boys!
What kind of relationship did they have before the experiment?
Before that, we tried to study in a group: we had one or two lessons without a tablet. A couple of times we tried a board game and a couple of times we played with a construction set. It was already noticeable that at some points, — each of the children had their own ones, — boys lost interest in what they were doing. Alexey wants more immersion without being distracted by external factors, he wants to complete building the construction set here and now. Yes, he basically admits that there is another child nearby. He has mechanisms of interaction with other people, but they are not worked through, there is no expressed need to use them. Speaking of Boris, it is hard for him to play with a construction set with interest for a long time, at some point he loses it, especially when he needs to wait until Alexey completes an action. He waits a minute, two and that’s it — he is not with us, he ran away.
Speaking of interaction [ingame] — yes, indeed, it has improved. The boys began to remember each other’s names. ‘Hey Boris, help me, help!’ — this has not happened before, and this is already a very important point, it is basically a recognition that there is another person around and they can help you. The most significant achievement is the fact that after several joint lessons Boris began to ask Alexey for help in everyday situations, for example, when he could not fasten his jacket.
Honestly speaking, I did not expect anything special from the game, I was just interested to see how our goals are met. In my opinion, the game is of decent quality and efficiency, but there is still a lot that needs to be finalized.
Did you work with students with whom it went less smoothly?
We had a group of such students: a boy named Vitya, who could not speak, 5 y.o. and a boy named Ignat, 7 y.o. Vitya is a calm, easily driven interested and overall super obedient boy. He does not understand everything completely, but he lingers for interaction, participates in activities, accepts other people’s rules. And Ignat is like a tornado — he acts fast, wants to be the first in everything, the best. If he feels that he or someone else made a mistake — he worries greatly, wants to fix it. So, we can say that we had a rather distinguished contradiction.
So here is what we did: we didn’t use any special regulation methods, we accepted everything as it was. Each boy did what he wanted to. However, Ignat could be included in the process as a controller of some sort: so that he would help Vitya make the right decisions. For example, they laid out the algorithm together, launched it and saw that it was not working. In this case, Ignat will be a guru who says: it doesn’t work; listen, Vitya, you need to change something. That is, he becomes an unspoken leader — he wants to be one, and we allow him to be one in an acceptable way. In this case, one way or another, they work as a team, interacting with each other.
Besides this game, what were you working on, what were you doing?
Primarily the same stuff [as with the others]: construction, work with cards, various board games. Vitya is always driven into the process, but at some points, he lingers due to the lack of understanding of the process or insufficiently formed skills. Ignat is fast, impatient, wants to control the situation and if something doesn’t work out for him or for Vitya — he reacts very explosively, wants to fix everything quickly, checks if everything is alright, everything is correct.
Playing on a tablet — is it a completely different experience or an addition to what you already have?
Both different and complementary. The answer depends on specific goals. If the goal is to use some kind of device for interaction, then yes, this is an alternative way. That is, we can use a tablet, our own legs and arms, we can use a laptop — literally anything. The interaction is achieved, and everything is fine. On the other hand, if a child has had no previous experience in playing the game before and then they suddenly gain access to it, it will be a unique experience consolidating the understanding of game mechanics, internal logic, its principles — and this makes the whole process unique in its own way.
Conclusion
It felt nice to learn that not only teachers, but also parents are interested in embarking on new adventures with children. Thanks to the very positive results, we plan to continue the development of this game.
The tests described above were carried out using the old version of the game, in which players could defeat the enemy with force or cunning. But we are preparing something brand new now. Soon, players will become able to try to negotiate with their enemies. For example, their opponent may be upset by something, bored, or furious. Players will have to understand what the opponent is feeling by reading the indirect signs and decide what to do depending on this information. Attacking an enemy who is already furious is not very safe. At the same time, you can easily distract a bored enemy.
Vsevolod and Dmitry see a huge potential in the players’ evaluation of social situations and modeling the consequences of their decisions. We hope that our game can not only help to develop communication and teamwork skills but will also teach players to read between the lines in social interactions.
All teacher’s guides, exercises and games teachers requested us to develop are accessible to everyone at Rewire.Education.
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