Avatarizing Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder into Serious Games for Social Communication Skill Intervention

Abstract

Many researchers have tried to build serious games with virtual agents/characters to help children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) practice social communication skills. However, children with ASD inherently have difficulties with simulations, empathy, and comprehension of actions and emotions. Games that use virtual agents/characters don't consider these inherent defects of mirroring dysfunction of children with ASD and hence are not effective for training autistic children's social communication skills. In this paper, an intervention tool based on serious games is designed for children with ASD to train their social communication skills. By avatarizing the autistic child who is undergoing intervention in the game scenarios, they can intuitively see themselves participating in the virtual social communication situations created by the game and produce psychological hints of “I should do or say this under this situation”. We hope that this avatar-based intervention tool helps children with ASD overcome the dysfunction of the mirror neuron system and improve their social communication skills.