Interactive Tangible Game for Collaborative Play Between Children with Cerebral Palsy.

Cerebral refers to the brain, specifically the outer layer while palsy refers to the loss or impairment of motor function. Interactive tangible systems have been widely designed with aims of rehabilitation for users with cerebral palsy. However, there is still a lack of tangible systems that can support collaborative play between children with cerebral palsy. This paper describes the process of research, design, and development as well as evaluation of an interactive tangible game system with the purpose of supporting collaborative play as well as rehabilitation. Based on results of a pilot study, a new prototype iteration of tangible system incorporates multiplayer games with an accessible tangible interface. Two user experiments were conducted virtually with 8 participants from the Spastic Children’s Association of Selangor and Federal Territory (SCAS&FT) who provided positive feedback and to gain a general population’s point of view on system’s usability, with results of 75 on the System Usability Score (SUS) showing that the system’s functionalities were deemed effective and easy to use. Main findings of this paper are that children with cerebral palsy prefer playing with friends rather than alone and the system provides motivation for rehabilitation as well as social collaboration during use due to its multiplayer function. We further discuss future work that can improve the development of interactive tangible game for collaborative play between children with cerebral palsy.