GAMEON: Bridging Digital Gaming and Real-World Skills for Autistic Individuals

Presentation Info

Title

GAMEON: Bridging Digital Gaming and Real-World Skills for Autistic Individuals

Summary

Autistic individuals frequently face significant challenges in social interactions, communication, and executive functioning, alongside high rates of anxiety. While early psycho-educational support is vital, access is often difficult, and conventional interventions are limited by low patient motivation and challenges in generalizing learned skills to daily routines. Digital games are emerging as a promising, complementary strategy due to their inherent engaging nature, which boosts adherence and cognitive function. However, a critical gap exists: serious games developed specifically for autism often lack the robust gameplay experience of entertainment games, making them less user-friendly. Despite evidence that entertainment games can also foster skill improvement, their integration into formal support remains limited, and stakeholders often lack awareness of their benefits. The GAMEON Erasmus+ project addresses these limitations by innovating support through a novel digital approach. Instead of developing another ad-hoc serious game, GAMEON uses video game modding of established entertainment titles. This strategy significantly enhances sustainability and accessibility via popular marketplaces. GAMEON pioneers a blended learning experience designed to overcome skill generalization issues. This approach links digital game progress with real-life, gamified missions. By blending the virtual experience with gradual exposure to real-life challenging activities, GAMEON aims to demonstrate if skill acquisition can be transferred between the two domains. A preliminary 6-month results will be presented, including a comprehensive guide providing a framework for assessing and selecting suitable games, alongside a preliminary cross-country report summarizing the findings and common patterns that emerged from needs analysis workshops performed with the autistic community.

Elio Salvadori will speak in the session dedicated to MENTAL HEALTH, on March 31st from 11.15-12.45