Components to design serious games for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to learn vocabulary

Abstract

Background: The research on the use of serious games to provide learning of skills to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) has increased in recent years. The use of serious games to provide vocabulary learning to children with ASD is still in infancy stage. Serious games are designed using a framework as a basis to use components in the game. However, there is no existing serious game design framework that can consider the needs of children with ASD.Objective: The objective of this study is to review components that could be useful in the design of serious game for children with ASD to learn vocabulary.Methods: The review of the literature on vocabulary learning of children with ASD and existing SGDFs was carried out to identify the components. The components have been reviewed from the perspective of 1) vocabulary learning of children with ASD in particular, 2) children with ASD in whole, 3) typical children and 4) game design in general.Results: A total of fifty components were found. The four components namely autism behaviours, strategies, instruction methods and modalities are related to children with ASD and their learning of vocabulary. The remaining components are based on the review of existing SGDFs. There were similarities in terms of use of components across the frameworks.Conclusion: The analysis of these components in the serious games developed for children with ASD shows its usability in designing games for these children.