Development and User Satisfaction of "Plan-It Commander," a Serious Game for Children with ADHD.
The need for engaging treatment approaches within mental health care has led to the application of gaming approaches to existing behavioral training programs (i.e., gamification). Because children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) tend to have fewer problems with concentration and engagement when playing digital games, applying game technologies and design approaches to complement treatment may be a useful means to engage this population in their treatment. Unfortunately, gamified training programs currently available for ADHD have been limited in their ability to demonstrate in-game behavior skills that generalize to daily life situations. Therefore, we developed a new serious game (called "Plan-It Commander") that was specifically designed to promote behavioral learning and promotes strategy use in domains of daily life functioning such as time management, planning/organizing, and prosocial skills that are known to be problematic for children with ADHD. An interdisciplinary team contributed to the development of the game. The game's content and approach are based on psychological principles from the Self-Regulation Model, Social Cognitive Theory, and Learning Theory. In this article, game development and the scientific background of the behavioral approach are described, as well as results of a survey (n = 42) to gather user feedback on the first prototype of the game. The findings suggest that participants were satisfied with this game and provided the basis for further development and research to the game. Implications for developing serious games and applying user feedback in game development are discussed.
1 Yulius Academy, Yulius Mental Health Care Organization , Barendrecht, The Netherlands .|2 Department of Clinical Psychology, Erasmus University of Rotterdam , Rotterdam, The Netherlands .
Kim C M
KC
Bul
2 Department of Clinical Psychology, Erasmus University of Rotterdam , Rotterdam, The Netherlands .
Ingmar H A
IH
Franken
3 Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences , KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium .|4 Department of Developmental Psychology, University of Amsterdam , Amsterdam, The Netherlands .|5 Cognitive Science Centre Amsterdam, University of Amsterdam , Amsterdam, The Netherlands .
Saskia
S
Van der Oord
6 Serious Games Institute, Faculty of Engineering and Computing, Coventry University , Coventry, United Kingdom .
Pamela M
PM
Kato
7 Department of Psychiatry, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium .
Marina
M
Danckaerts
1 Yulius Academy, Yulius Mental Health Care Organization , Barendrecht, The Netherlands .|2 Department of Clinical Psychology, Erasmus University of Rotterdam , Rotterdam, The Netherlands .
Leonie J
LJ
Vreeke
8 Venture & Incubation Centre , Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Beerse, Belgium .
Annik
A
Willems
9 Department of Medical Affairs, Janssen Pharmaceuticals , Tilburg, The Netherlands .
Helga J J
HJ
van Oers
10 Centre ZitStil , Antwerp, Belgium .
Ria
R
van den Heuvel
11 RANJ Serious Games , Rotterdam, The Netherlands .
Rens
R
van Slagmaat
1 Yulius Academy, Yulius Mental Health Care Organization , Barendrecht, The Netherlands .
Athanasios
A
Maras
D001289:Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity / Q000628:therapy*; D032763:Behavior Control; D002648:Child; D006801:Humans; D007858:Learning; D008297:Male; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology; D000068356:Self-Control; D000067570:Social Learning; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D018910:Video Games / Q000523:psychology*