Effects of a collaborative gamification on learning and engagement of children with Autism

Gamification, i.e., the use of game elements in non-game contexts, is an effective tool to help children learn using educational technologies. When utilized adequately with pedagogical approaches that foster students’ interactions with learning materials, gamification has consistently been shown to increase students’ participation, motivation, engagement, and learning gains. Nevertheless, when we consider children with autism, there is little evidence about the benefits of gamification for learning. In addition, to develop gamified educational technologies for this public, psychology plays a key role, and few practitioners in this area have this knowledge. A collaborative design in which the collaborators come from different knowledge backgrounds, known as co-design, may deal with this issue. In this co-design, Gamification, Human-Computer Interaction, and Autism Spectrum Disorder experts participated in a development process to create gamified educational technologies for children with autism. We conducted a single-subject design experiment to assess the effect of this technology that was operationalized in the prototype. Findings indicated that the developed prototype fosters correct answers, reduces undesired behaviors, follows Applied Behavior Analysis skills, and presents positive behaviors. The main contributions of this research were: (i) the development process using co-design, which associates gamification and Discrete Trial Training to create gamified educational technologies for children with autism; (ii) prototypes used to operationalize the gamified educational technology; and (ii) the experiment with children with autism to analyze learning and engagement using technology created.