My mobile story: therapeutic storytelling for children

Abstract

This paper describes the design, evaluation and rationale behind a multimedia message service (MMS) based therapeutic system for adolescents attending therapy. The mobile phone is used to assist clients in engaging with therapy through the completion of structured therapeutic tasks. Content is gathered by the client with the phone, and browser-based software is then used to structure the content during a face-to-face therapeutic session. We discuss initial findings including the potential for engaging clients in remote therapeutic activities and the importance of client control over access to their content. We also consider several practical issues concerning the design and evaluation of software to be used in clinical settings.