Rehabilitation for Children with Speech Disabilities: Presenting Two Bespoke Video Games

Rehabilitation and exercises for children with speech disabilities can be tedious. To address this issue, we created two different types of video games that will hopefully act as a motivation to children to keep playing while also practicing their words. The games were created using a user-centered approach with experts on accessibility and speech rehabilitation. We used pre-trained natural language models to detect the words the children are saying. The performance of their game is correlated to the performance of their articulation of the words; namely, the confidence level of the spoken word to the representation of the word in our pre-trained model. Both games are suitable for updates that would add
levels, complexity and keep the games interesting going forward. It is our goal to keep adding capabilities and levels for a longitudinal capable play and therefore be able to keep the interest of a child in the long term.

Planetary Protector

The first game is called. Our end user is able to shoot at asteroids heading his way and has to protect the earth from collisions from the asteroids passing by. In order to do this the user points and shoots at them from their spaceship using a targeting system with a mouse. They are then prompted to say a word to determine if the laser fire was accurate and hits the target. The game settings can be changed to provide more or less of a challenge, depending on the users’ abilities and progress; both in terms of the confidence levels of the pronounced words and the speed of the game. It is worth noting that the game
may produce difficulties in playing for users who also suffer from a motor disability such as cerebral palsy due to the mouse controls.

The game includes five screens, an introduction, a main menu, options, game-play and prompt. Introduction Screen/ Tutorial includes a small paragraph that explains the player’s purpose. It also displays the controls of the game and how to play it. The Main Menu Screen consists of three main buttons, play, options, and quit. Options Section Screen has two sliders, one to adjust the volume of the sound effects and one to adjust the music of the game. There is also a toggle button to allow the player
to include a ”camera shake” effect when they take damage. The second page of the Options screen
includes more detailed settings. This is set to be used by the player’s guardian to see what the player is
comfortable with. Figure 3 shows more details of the screen including prompt rating thresholds, prompt
difficulty, and prompt words. Game-Play Screen consists of multiple UI elements including the health
bar, the points scored and the number of meteors left to complete the level. Finally, the Prompt Screen
is shown when the player clicks on a meteor. A random word is generated and then shown on the screen.

Adventures in Vocal Land

Adventures in Vocal Land follows a more adventure-type scenario and is also suitable for a less motor-interactive end-user profile. Each stage produces an obstacle for the game hero and a prompt for the child to say a word. Should the child pronounce the word correctly (acceptable confidence level of our pre-trained model), our character overcomes the obstacle and comes face to face with the next one. We note that each level associates the word with the obstacle our user needs to pronounce and overcome.