A kinect-based motion-sensing game therapy to foster the learning of children with sensory integration dysfunction

Sensory integration dysfunction (SID, also known as sensory processing disorder, SPD) is a condition that exists when a person’s multisensory integration fails to process and respond adequately to the demands of the environment. Children with SID (CwSID) are also learners with disabilities with regard to responding adequately to the demands made by a learning environment, and usually have performance difficulties in one or more areas of life, such as productivity, leisure and play, or activities of daily living, and this can reduce their learning motivation. This study tries to develop a motion-sensing digital game-based SID therapy to help such children become more engaged in physical training, with the hope that by improving their bodily-kinesthetic intelligence these children can be more confident of facing various learning challenges, like those associated with social participation. This research applied the Microsoft Kinect system and a specially designed motion-sensing game related to SID, and used interviews to collect responses from the children and their parents. The Chinese version of the sensory profile and clinical observation were applied to evaluate the effects of the therapy, and the triangulation method applied in the data analysis reveals the improvements of all participants in eight clinical observation items. The results imply that our approach was able to increase the learning motivation and actions of the CwSID who participated in this study, with better results than those obtained in our earlier work, which used the Nintendo Wii device and its commercially available games.