StarRescue: Transforming A Pong Game to Visually Convey the Concept of Turn-taking to Children with Autism

Abstract

Previous research has shown that children with autism face severe social collaboration challenges such as having issues with turn-taking, which is essential when developing social skills. However, few digital interventions have provided visual support for the development of turn-taking behaviour. To visually manifest the process of turn-taking, this research transformed a pong game into a two-player tablet game, i.e., StarRescue. In this paper, we introduce StarRescue’s game design decisions and preliminary findings gathered from semi-structured interviews with teachers and parents of pre-school children with high-functioning autism. The results demonstrated that StarRescue has the potential to help children with autism improve their social behaviors. Furthermore, this research shed light on future tablet game design to enhance turn-based collaboration for children with autism.