Towards Developing an IoT Based Gaming Application for Improving Cognitive Skills of Autistic Kids

Uzma Hasan, Md. Fourkanul Islam, Muhammad Nazrul Islam, Sifat Bin Zaman, Shaila Tajmim Anuva, Farhana Islam Emu, Tarannum Zaki

Abstract: With the advancement of technology, a wide range of automated tools are now used to teach children with autism. One of the widely used therapies for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is Applied Behaviour Analysis (ABA) training that focuses on improving a wide range of behaviours like communication, adaptive learning skills, social skills and a variety of motor skills. Thus, the objective of this article is to design and develop a gaming application for autistic children for improving their cognitive skills. The Internet of Things (IoT) and ABA techniques were adopted to develop the gaming application that consists three games including a puzzle game, an object finding game and a road crossing game. The cognitive development (in terms of gaming scores) of a child over the time can be stored and analyzed using this application. A light-weighted evaluation study was carried out; and found that the proposed gaming application is usable, effective and useful for autistic kids to improve their cognitive skills.