In collaboration with:
CICESE Research Center.
Nuevo Reto
Research Team
Marisela Hernández Lara.
Ana I. Martínez García.
Karina Caro.
Emotion4Down: A serious video game for supporting emotional awareness of people with Down Syndrome
Background
People with Down syndrome might experience difficulties identifying and expressing their emotions. These skills are part of their emotional awareness. Having problems with the development of emotional awareness can cause anxiety and depression, and in some cases, behaviors that affect physical and mental health and social and labor inclusion.
Some interventions for supporting emotional awareness in other populations have been adapted for people with Down syndrome. Also, different video games have been suggested to complement these interventions. The literature proposes using serious video games to support developmental skills in children with Down syndrome, which have been shown to help them maintain their attention and motivation. However, there is still little work related to supporting people with Down syndrome's emotional awareness through interactive technology. Emotion4Down is a serious video game to support the emotional awareness of people with Down syndrome.
This project was presented as a short paper at the 18th ACM International Conference on Interaction Design and Children 2019 and the Eight Mexican Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (MexIHC 2021).
Impact
Currently, Emotion4Down is being evaluated. We plan to conduct usability and efficacy evaluations involving people with Down syndrome and intellectual disabilities as future work.
MexIHC - Short paper presentation.
Publications
Marisela Hernández Lara, Karina Caro, and Ana I. Martinez-García. (2019). A Serious Videogame to Support Emotional Awareness of People with Down Syndrome. In Proceedings of the 18th ACM International Conference on Interaction Design and Children (IDC '19).
Marisela Hernández Lara, Ana I. Martinez-García, and Karina Caro. (2021). Emotion4Down: A Serious Video Game for Supporting Emotional Awareness of People with Down Syndrome. In 8th Mexican Conference on Human-Computer Interaction (MexIHC' 21).
Hernandez-Lara, M., Martinez-Garcia, Ana I., Caro, K. (2023). Using Emotion4Down: Evaluating the Design of a Serious Video Game for Supporting Emotional Awareness with People with Intellectual Disabilities, Interacting with Computers. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/iwc/iwac044