Using Emotion4Down: Evaluating the Design of a Serious Video Game for Supporting Emotional Awareness with People with Intellectual Disabilities

Abstract

Down syndrome is considered the most common genetic cause of intellectual disability. People with intellectual disabilities have deficits in intellectual functioning such as attention, reasoning and academic learning. According to the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, intellectual disability encompasses only a person’s intellectual functioning; however, it can co-exist with other developmental disabilities, such as Down syndrome. People with Down syndrome may have intellectual disabilities in the mild to moderate range. Because of this, they exhibit some cognitive and emotional characteristics of intellectual disability. Among the emotional characteristics of these populations are difficulties in recognizing some emotions, which triggers anxiety and depression problems. The literature proposes using serious video games to support different skills of people with Down syndrome and intellectual disabilities. Some of these works have shown how these serious video games support the development of different skills of these populations. However, they have not been designed to support their emotional awareness. Likewise, technology is aimed at supporting emotion recognition and identification, but most of these have been aimed at other populations, such as people with autism. This paper presents the evaluation process of the design of Emotion4Down: a serious video game to support emotional awareness. We conducted this evaluation in three stages involving people with intellectual disabilities and Down syndrome.