Desarrollo de un videojuego integrado con kinect que favorezca el desarrollo de relaciones interpersonales en niños con autismo: caso práctico Fundación Autismo Ecuador.

Abstract

The current graduation work was based on the implementation of a videogame with an integrated Kinect device that allows improving the interpersonal relationships of children suffering from autism. “JoinMe” videogame has five mini games; each one is focused on reinforcing the children’s abilities like mathematical reasoning, recognition of emotions and comprehensive reading. For the project management, it was necessary to use SUM methodology that comes from SCRUM, but it implements beta interactions that must be applied to validate the videogame functionality, these interactions have to be supervised by a beta verifier and are carried out to liberate functional versions of the videogame. Unity (videogame engine) was used for the implementation of “JoinMe” as well as C# programming language with Visual Studio as a development tool and SDK (Software Development Kit) from Kinect to use the functions of the device. Once the development stage of the game was concluded, the improvements on the use of “JoinMe” in the interpersonal relationships therapies of children suffering from autism were evaluated. An instrument built from children-applied KidsLife scale was used before and after using the videogame. The data tabulation reflected that the evaluation percentage of children before using the videogame was 80.66% and after using “JoinMe”, the percentage was 89%. An increase of 8.34% was presented, thus it is concluded that the use of “JoinMe” videogame in the therapies improves the interpersonal relationships. It is recommended to implement new games that cover different areas of the autism since the videogame implemented covers the development of interpersonal relationships, but the people who suffer from autism need to develop more aspects that permit them to be included in the society in a natural way.