SONIA: A Real-Time Automated Framework for Sonification of Navigation and Interactive Activities for Children with...

Pediatric populations with congenital visual impairments face significant challenges in motor, cognitive, social and perceptual development. This paper introduces SONIA (SOnification of Navigation and Interactive Activities), an automated real-time sonification framework which proposes to enhance the design of interactive activities for children with visual impairments. SONIA uses motion capture systems to implement customized sonified paths in a user-defined environment and exploits marker detection to identify when motion occurs in the pre-designed path. To test SONIA applicability, we conducted an experiment with a group of adults and children, assessing their ability to walk straight while blindfolded, by creating an auditory beam. Results showed that auditory cues helped participants reenter the path more frequently and improved walking straightness when visual input was absent. These findings highlight SONIA's potential to improve spatial perceptual and cognitive skills through engaging, real-time sensory feedback, paving the way for its use in pediatric assessment, rehabilitation and beyond.