Augmented Reality, Serious Games and Picture Exchange Communication System for People with ASD: Systematic Literature Review and Future Directions.

Haneen Almurashi,Mohammed Hadwan,Slim Kammoun,Rahma Bouaziz,Wallaa Alharthi,Mohammed Al-Sarem

doi:10.3390/s22031250

Abstract

For people with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), using technological tools, such as augmented reality (AR) and serious games remain a new and unexplored option. To attract people with ASD who have communicative, social, emotional and attention deficit disorders to behavioral treatments, an attractive environment is needed that ensures continuity during treatment. The aim of the current work is to efficiently examine systematic reviews and relevant primary studies on ASD solutions from 2015 to 2020, particularly those using the traditional Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), the application of augmented reality and those that propose serious games, thereby providing an overview of existing evidence and to identify strategies for future research. Five databases were searched for keywords that may be included within the broad Autism Spectrum Disorder ‘ASD’ umbrella term, alongside ‘augmented reality’, ‘serious games’ and ‘PECS’. We screened 1799 titles and abstracts, read, and retained 12 reviews and 43 studies. The studies scrutinized in our systematic review were examined to answer four primary and four sub-research questions, which we formulated to better understand general trends in the use of approaches for attracting people with ASD to behavioral therapies. Additionally, our systematic review also presents ongoing issues in this area of research and suggests promising future research directions. Our review is useful to researchers in this field as it facilitates the comparison of existing studies with work currently being conducted, based on the availability of a wide range of studies in three different areas (AR, SG and PECS).

Highlights

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopment condition that affects many abilities including social, verbal and physical skills
The essence of this review is to provide information about the latest studies conducted from 2015 to 2020 in the following categories: (1) studies that use an augmented reality (AR) environment for assisting people with ASD in all skills; we focus on communication and social skills and take advantage of solutions attached to other skills; (2) studies that employ serious games and present specific standards that are used to develop skills (3); studies that include Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS)
In relation to PECS’s applications with ASD, as well as surveys that integrate the fields of AR, serious games and PECS’s technology with ASD, we found no surveys during the research process

Summary

Introduction

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopment condition that affects many abilities including social, verbal and physical skills. It typically arises in early childhood, before the age of three years [1]. Autism can be defined in terms of the pathological anatomy of the cerebral cortex. It involves only a slight disturbance in the basic and diamond radial organization of neurons and glia in this particular area of the brain [29]. Studies have expressed it as a slight disorder that is extremely variable in dendritic orientation and in the decrease in size and spacing between the small radial columns of neurons in different cortical regions, including the frontal lobe [30,31]. The severity and size of the disorder may differ between people; different types of autism present with different characteristics as shown in Table 2 [18]

Objectives

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion