NCT04295746

Improving Daily Living Skills in People With Autism Spectrum Disorder Through a Personalised Serious Game

• Status: Unknown
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 10 (estimated)
• Sponsor: Federico II University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 8 Years – 16 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

This study evaluates the efficacy of a rehabilitation intervention for people with Autism Spectrum Disorder through an individualised serious game developed for improving skills related to a specific daily living activity: shopping in a supermarket.

Detailed description

Serious games are innovative computer-based interventions to support children and adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). However, few studies have assessed the efficacy of these interventions in real-life contexts. The present study investigates the generalisation of daily living skills related to shopping activities after a rehabilitation intervention administered via a personalised serious game (ShopAut). The underlying hypothesis of this study is that training with an individualised serious game can improve performance in a real-life environment. In order to prove this hypothesis, a small sample of subjects with ASD will play an individualised serious game, ShopAut, for ten sessions. Subjects will undergo real-life experiences in a supermarket pre- and post-virtual training to determine whether there had been a generalisation of skills from the virtual environment to the real environment. Improvements in skills and performance in the real shopping activity are evaluated using specific tools. The serious game ShopAut is developed integrating an individualised design that provides both the personalisation of the game's scenario, contents, difficulty, and user interface; and the customisation of game modes, player perspectives, and input devices. It is a three-dimensional game that provides a realistic shopping experience where the player can practice and engage with, above all, shopping activities, experiment their problem-solving skills, and take on unexpected events.

Conditions

• Autism Spectrum Disorder

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Serious Game ShopAut	The serious game ShopAut, is a three-dimensional game conceptually based on classic 3D life simulation games. ShopAut aims to teach players the procedure of a shopping activity; to reinforce object categorization and recognition in a supermarket; to improve attention, orientation, and problem-solving skills; and to help the player engage in simple economic transactions. The intervention provides a virtual training with ShopAut to train, experiment, and practice behaviours and actions that can be then transferred in real-life contexts.

Timeline

• Start date: 2019-03-01
• Primary completion: 2019-11-30
• Completion: 2021-09-30
• First posted: 2020-03-04
• Last updated: 2020-07-23

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Italy