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A 3D serious game for improving social skills of children with ADHD via Rhythm-centric interactivity

Giannaraki Marina

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Summary

This thesis presents a multimodal 3D serious game named "ADDventurous Rhythmical Planet". The goal is to exploit the benefits of music and rhythm helping children diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) to overcome their psychosocial challenges. Music is shown to significantly help children maintain focused attention as well as offer a timed structure around their actions, involving melody and tempo. the advantages of music are exploited in this game, using a tin drum. This drum is used by the player to produce rhythm. The drum is connected through a board named Makey Makey to the computer. This board sends each drum knock as a mouse click signal to the computer. Using that, the player tries to reproduce a given beat, and subsequently synchronize with another player, and cooperatively produce an expected beat. That creates the connection between the real and the virtual world of the game. In order for the hero of the game to progress in the game, the player uses the tin drum to reproduce the rhythms that are requested. After completing the single-player mode, the player moves on to the multi-player mode. In this mode, the two players will have to hold hands and use the tin drum to collaboratively reproduce the requested beat. For the input management and comparison of rhythms, a novel algorithm was implemented. The algorithm takes the beat created by the player and compares it to the expected beat. The player completes the game level if the rhythm played is similar enough to the rythm heard. If not, the player uses the tin drum to play the beat again in order to achieve a more similar beat to the one heard. The player receives a visual representation of the beat played showing the correct knocks and the wrong ones. The benefit of music is demonstrated in order to enhance social skills and collaboration between children.

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