Serious Game for Dyslexia Screening: Design and Verification

Abstract

This paper describes the process we undertook to develop a game-based approach to collect data for the diagnosis of dyslexia in children between the ages of 6 and 12 years old. A number of data collection approaches have been used previously such as eye tracking, MRI, EEG and game based approaches. Data collection can be a challenging task, as many of these approaches rely on use of specialized technology and in the case of MRI and EEG approaches, also require the presence of experts. In contrast, game based data collection is less intrusive and does not require the presence of experts or specialized devices. The content of the game in this research work was designed by identifying the problems faced by children with dyslexia in different age groups, designing questions to evaluate these problems and finally, validating the game design through two formative evaluations and with domain experts. This initial study and its statistical analysis showed a significant difference in the performance of children with dyslexia from children without dyslexia when playing the game.

Keywords:

• Learning disabilities
• dyslexia
• serious game design
• screening

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our gratitude to the Institute of Dyslexia Education and Attitudinal Studies (IDEAS) for their help in refining the game. We would also like to thank Times Education, Impact for Children, and all the parents and children who took part in this study for their valuable feedback and support. Additionally we would like to express our gratitude to Freepik (www.freepik.com) for the images used in the game.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gulmina Rextina

Gulmina Rextina is serving as Lecturer at COMSATS University Islamabad and a PhD scholar at SZABIST University Islamabad. She has a master’s degree from Queen Mary, University of London and her research interests include Inclusive design and applications of machine learning.

Sohail Asghar

Sohail Asghar is working as Director Campus Islamabad at COMSATS University Islamabad. He is also Principal Investigator of Medical Imaging and Diagnostics Lab which is a part of National Center of Artificial Intelligence. Professor Sohail has over 25 years of experience in teaching and research.

Tony Stockman

Tony Stockman is a lecturer and researcher at Queen Mary University of London, UK. With over 100 peer-reviewed HCI publications, he is a former president and now emeritus Board member of the International Community for Auditory display ICAD, www.icad.org. He has served on organizing committees of numerous international HCI conferences.

Arooj Khan

Arooj Ashraf, employed as a child psychologist at Shifa Tameer-e-Milla University, focuses her research on personality disorders, ASD, trauma in differently abled individuals, and environmental factors contributing to conduct disorders. She recently authored an article in Volume 38, Issue 4 of the Pakistan Journal of Psychological Association.