SAGA (Social Games for Autistic Adolescents) And a project that was developed to help ASD teenagers improve social skills. Indeed, individuals diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder often have difficulty interpreting facial cues, in part because they are unable to recognize how the gaze direction of the eyes is used to predict the actions and intentions of others. This can have huge implications for behavioral understanding, language learning and social interaction.
One Penn State study is developing a targeted intervention method using gaming technology designed to improve sensitivity to gaze signals that could treat core symptoms of autism and help improve social interactions.
The study was published in the scientific journal JCPP Advances (the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry Advances).
SAGA: that’s what it is
SAGA has been in development since 2013, when Suzy Scherf, associate professor of psychology and co-funded faculty member from Social Science Research Institute, and his team received a Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL): “We wanted to develop a game for computers to improve sensitivity to gaze signals for ASD people“, Declared the expert.
In 2015, the work was featured in Big Ten Network’s LiveBig spotlight segment shown during football and basketball games. Jason Griffin, PhD student in the department of psychology and collaborator in the Developmental Neuroscience Laboratory directed by Scherf, he gathered feedback from participants who played SAGA while filming the segment to further refine the game.
During the game, participants advance through a narrative storyline and interact with animated characters using a variety of non-verbal social cues, including gazing, to guide targeted behavior and problem-solving in the game.
“We built a narrative about being a pet detective and told the participants they had to find the lost pet.”Griffin said. “As they progress through the game, they learn to respond to non-verbal social cues from humanoid figures with slightly enlarged heads and eyes “.
Scherf said the game strategy is an innovative approach in this type of intervention, because the learning of skills is separate from the game plot: “Participants can make their own choices in the game’s narrative, while the game technology automatically calibrates itself on their performance to keep them engaged and learning. This means that participants spend hours engaged in the gaze task, which would be very difficult to get done otherwise ”.
According to Scherf, the game is the product of a Penn State interdisciplinary collaboration since a team of undergraduate and graduate visual arts students worked with the lab programmer to design the graphics for the game.
“Each character’s gaze had to be exactly right and mimic human movement, which was very complicated. Jason tested the game iteratively and provided feedback so the team could understand what we wanted to do as scientists. It was a total collaborative effort that also adapts to the resources and time constraints of the SAGA project “, explained the scientist.
During the SAGA study, 40 ASD adolescents were randomized to the treatment or standard care control group. Teenagers in the treatment group were asked to play SAGA for 30-minute sessions at home three times a week for 10 weeks.
According to Griffin, After the 10-week period, adolescents in the treatment group developed increased sensitivity to gaze signals from the human eye, while the standard care group did not: “Participants who experienced a sufficient dose of gameplay showed major improvements related to treatment, such as the ability to perceive and interpret other people’s gaze cues ”.
Improvements to human gaze cues have also translated outside of the game: “We showed participants images and videos of people and noticed an increase in gaze cues among treatment participants“Said Scherf. However, the most relevant finding from the study was that adolescents in the treatment group demonstrated improvements in social skills, as documented by their parents.
“We found that the participants who showed the greatest improvement in understanding human gaze cues in play had corresponding improvements in social interactions. Parents were unaware of their children’s performance in the game, so their comments were completely unbiased“Explained Scherf.
Furthermore, i researchers reported that they were able to restrain all participants during the study: “Often, the surgeries take place in a clinic and it can be difficult to get children to want to participate. The children found the game very engaging and were thrilled to play it “Griffin said.
Scherf appreciates Griffin’s commitment to the project, which has lasted for over four years: “Jason was the only graduate student to collect data, and he also coordinated a team of full-time staff and students. Not only that, he also took the lead in coordinating the tests, where families came every weekend for months. “
During the second phase of the project, researchers will develop enhancements for the game to determine whether learned skills translate into real-life conversations.
Other researchers in the project include SSRI co-funded faculty members Charles Greier, Dr. Frances Keesler Graham Early Career Professor and Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Studies; And Joshua Smyth, distinguished professor of biobehavioral health and SSRI associate director.
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