ID-GAMING: Making a difference for persons with intellectual disabilities
A group of six institutions, across the social solidarity and information and communication technologies (ICT) sectors, have partnered up to improve the quality of life of persons with intellectual disabilities through “serious games”. Preliminary results are in — and they are promising.
From 01 November 2020 to 31 October 2022, an interdisciplinary and international corpus of social workers and researchers — including INESC-ID’s Rui Prada — collaborated with one goal in mind: to increase the competences of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities (PID) and related professionals and relatives by developing and implementing ICT serious games (designed with purposes other than just pure entertainment — e.g., training), thus hopefully improving cognitive functions and, therefore, their quality of life.
Following a codesign approach in which PID were involved in the development process from the beginning, ID-GAMING resulted in three main outputs: the QooL CITY Game (a collaborative serious game, available in board and online versions, where players are engaged in a joint-play activity to have fun and achieve training objectives together), the Game Catalogue (a set of games and platforms suitable to PID, in which each game can be selected according to the cognitive function to be trained) and a host of Training Materials (conceived to provide support to PID, professionals and relatives when using the QooL CITY Game with training purposes). All resources are freely available on the ID-GAMING toolkit website.
Based on observations reported by technicians working with PID during ID-GAMING evaluation sessions, over 70% of PID involved are estimated to have benefitted from some form of improvement. Adoption of ID-GAMING resources by the PID support institutions involved in the project has been substantial, with four events to disseminate the developed tools being held and several institutions showing real interest in using and adapting them to their own setting. As a testament to the reach and potential of ID-GAMING, the project received the Inclusive E+ Award from the Education and Training Erasmus+ Portuguese National Agency in November 2021.
The six ID-GAMING partners are now focused on further developing the project, both by putting together a five-year exploitation plan as well as moving forward with a controlled research study in which the positive outcomes observed by technicians and social workers while ID-GAMING was implemented can be confirmed and systematized.
“It was a challenging job because it involved a population with very specific needs, which is why we followed a methodology that involved targeted population groups from the beginning. We held several codesign workshops and some of the ideas proposed in them were included in the final game,” Rui Prada commented.
At the end of the day, a project that purports to improve PID’s quality of life only makes sense, and can only be judged, by the impact it has on those populations. “I was extremely happy to see, at the end of the project, that the main ambassadors of the game are the people we created it for,” Prada proudly observes. “In an event organized to disseminate the project’s results to the community, held at IST Tagus Park in October, we invited several of the PID involved in codesign and evaluation of the game in Portugal, from CECD in Mira Sintra. They presented and explained the game to the other participants with great enthusiasm and pride. The institution’s trainers also thanked us for the work of creating the game. It was gratifying to see that the game was so well received and seems to have such an impact.”
Bringing together expertise from six partners — Centro de Educação para o Cidadão com Deficiência (CECD, in Mira Sintra, Portugal), INESC-ID, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH, in Greece), Consorzio Solidarietà Sociale Forlì-Cesena (CSS, in Italy), Coordinadora de recursos de atención a personas con diversidad funcional intelectual (COPAVA, Spain) and Associazione Italiana per l’Assistenza agli Spastici (AIAS, Italy) — ID-GAMING was co-funded by the European Union Erasmus+ programme.
Upcoming Events
OLISSIPO Workshop: “How to design a graphical abstract” with Dr. Rita Félix (CNC-UC)
On April 19, the OLISSIPO project will host an 8-hour workshop titled “How to design a graphical abstract” with Dr. Rita Félix, a science communicator, illustrator and designer from CNC Center for Neuroscience and Cell Biology (Coimbra, Portugal). Registration is free and seating is limited.
Registration Deadline: April 5 | Register here (free but mandatory)
Date & Time: April 19, 09h00-18h00 ( 8-hours)
Where: INESC-ID, R. Alves Redol 9, 1000-029 Lisboa | Room 9 (Auditorium), Ground Floor
Summary: “How to design a graphical abstract” Workshop aims to explain what a graphical abstract is, and give you design tools and tips on how to create a better, clear and engaging graphical abstract. This workshop is tailored to give you tools and improve your graphical abstract, without having to learn how to use a new software program (like Adobe Illustrator). Bring your graphical abstract, share it with the class, work on it and take home a new version.
Short Bio: Rita Félix is a science communicator, illustrator and designer, with life sciences research experience. Currently working as the Institutional Communication Manager and Designer at CNC-UC. She completed her PhD in Neuroscience in 2020, in the Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme. After that, she enrolled in a Digital Illustration Specialization Course to further develop her visualization and design skills. Worked as a Scientific Graphic Designer at Science Crunchers, a science communication company, where she developed multiple graphical abstracts, article figures, infographics, diagrams, illustrations, visual identity, logos and webdesign for companies, scientific institutions and Horizon 2020 consortia. More information at https://ritallfelix.wixsite.com/portfolio .
INESC-ID talk: “Rise of the AI-Empowered End User Software Engineer” by Ed Ayers and Andy Gordon (Cogna)
On April 19, INESC-ID will host a talk by Ed Ayers and Andy Gordon from the startup Cogna. The talk is titled “Rise of the AI-Empowered End User Software Engineer” and is organised by INESC-ID researcher Nuno Lopes.
Date & Time: April 19, 15h00 -16h00
Where: INESC-ID, Rua Alves Redol, 9, 1000-029 Lisboa | Room 9 (Auditorium), Ground Floor
Summary:
“What if natural language really is the new programming language? Inspired by the transformation of professional software engineering by generative AI, let’s take the next step: empowering end users. We can boost their productivity with hyper-customized software generated from natural language. This challenge needs research right across software engineering: requirements, architecture, coding, testing, verification, repair, and maintenance. We will survey current progress and open research questions in this exciting new area of programming language research.”
(Photo: Cogna website)