Tech4Good Research Lab

Research Team

Joan Raygoza Romero
Ariana González-Hernández
Omar Mizael Carballido Ortega
Cesar Uriel Pérez-Mosco
Ángel Emiliano Salazar Pérez
Grecia Yudith Alcántara Soto
Karina Bermudez
Hector Zatarain-Aceves
Karina Caro

A movement-based game for supporting cognitive-motor skills

The main menu of the Move&Learn exergame .

Background

Several neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and intellectual developmental disorders (including Down syndrome), are characterized by deficits in motor coordination, including visual-motor coordination. Deficits in visual-motor coordination can hinder an individual's ability to perform academic activities and activities of daily living, hindering their independence. Exergames can potentially support children's cognitive and motor skills with neurodevelopmental disorders.

This project aims to design adaptive exergames to support the cognitive and motor coordination skills of children with neurodevelopmental disorders. Following a user design center methodology, we design Move&Learn. This exergame helps children with neurodevelopmental disorders practice visual-motor coordination skills by executing visual-motor coordination exercises using the players' upper limbs. The exergame can adapt the gameplay according to the players' performance.

This project was presented at GoodIT '21: Proceedings of the Conference on Information Technology for Social Good and at the 8th Heidelberg Laureate Forum 2021. We are currently incorporating the results from a user study with neurotypical children and adults to improve the Move&Learn design. We plan to deploy the new version of the exergame with people with neurodevelopmental disorders.

8th Heidelberg Laureate Forum 2021

Move&Learn was presented during the poster session of the 8th Heidelberg Laureate Forum, and it was chosen as one of 20 presenters from over 70 applicants.

UABC Science, Humanities, and Arts Dissemination Week

Move&Learn as part of the UABC Science, Humanities, and Arts Dissemination Week 2023.

Publications

Raygoza-Romero, J., Gonzalez-Hernandez, A., Bermudez, K., Martinez-Garcia, A. I., & Caro, K. (2021). Move&Learn: an Adaptive Exergame to Support Visual-Motor Skills of Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorders. In Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Information Technology for Social Good (pp. 169-174). DOI: 10.1145/3462203.3475904

Events and media coverage

Caro, K., Raygoza-Romero, J., González-Hernández, A. (2021) Desarrollo de un exergame adaptativo para apoyar el desarrollo cognitivo-motriz de personas con trastornos del neurodesarrollo. XVIII Encuentro Participación de la Mujer en la Ciencia. September 2021.
Caro, K. (2021) Adaptive Exergames to Support Visual-Motor Skills of Individuals with Neurodevelopmental Disorders. Poster session at the 8th Heidelberg Laureate Forum 2021.