Using a motion-controlled game to teach four elementary school children with intellectual disabilities to improve...

Individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) may have difficulties in performing daily living tasks. Among other daily living tasks, independent personal hygiene is an essential life skill for people with ID.

Four children in a special education class participated in the experiment. We employed the Kinect V2 sensor to gamify hand washing. Specifically, a non-concurrent multiple baseline design was adopted to demonstrate the relation between game-based intervention and washing hands independently.

Data showed that the percentage of correct task steps increased among all four participants. Social validity results showed the parents considered the video game was very useful and it had helped their children learn the hand hygiene skills effectively.

Although the game is a highly accepted training tool for school-use, it currently remains error-prone. A more technically robust system will likely result in higher participant motivation and task performance.