Exergames for Children with Special Needs

In a world of decreasing physical activity, games in immersive Virtual Reality (VR) that playfully engage in exercises bear a lot of attraction. This paper explores the application of these so called “exergames” in an inclusive educational setting. Children with special needs normally require a large amount of care and attention. Self-directed exergames reduce the load on support staff while offering playful exercise and training to this group of children. Through a suite of three exergames developed for the Oculus Quest 2, we investigate the suitability of this technology as well as the impact on children’s motivation and attention span. Our observational field study, conducted over two months with six children aged seven to nine, demonstrates a high acceptance of immersive VR and a positive short-term effect on the attention span of the children as well as heightened motivation. We show that this technology is a valuable tool due to its accessibility and new forms of interaction as well as easy creation of controllable content. However, we conclude that for a persistent effect more diverse, customisable and challenging exergames are needed. Our observations heavily imply that design patterns of exergames in VR can be extended to children with special needs at a very young age. Although conducted with a small sample size, this study contributes to the expanding body of research on the utilisation of VR in inclusive education and provides valuable insights for educators and developers in this domain alike.