How to Design Games for Deaf Children: Evidence-Based Guidelines - 2nd International Workshop on Evidence-Based Technology Enhanced Learning - page 86

thus, could have vibration or motion feedback for directing the attention [GL
3.4.1] of the learner towards specific targets, e.g., the correct or wrong resolution
of a game. However, one must be careful where to place the animation on the
screen because it might adversely affect their focus attention. Since deaf children
are more impulsive, the type of feedback must be calibrated on the target deaf
children [GL 3.4.2] so as not to be frustrating or irritating. While hearing children
can listen and answer simultaneously within the game, deaf children must interact
with one task at a time, e.g., the game should propose a reading task and a resolu-
tion task in separate moments [GL 3.2.3] .

3.5 Game Genres and Avatars

According to the literature review, possibly due to difficulties in communicating
and socially interacting with nearby peers, deaf children prefer single-player
games [GL 3.5.1] . In our usability study with deaf and hearing children, we ob-
served that all our children's preferences were for playing with consoles (about
27% of preferences). All children prefer doing specific activities always in the
same place. The majority of deaf children prefer playing with consoles alone and
prefer games with movement [GL 3.5.2] (e.g. balance board of WII or kinect of
XBOX). Therefore they need sufficient space to move freely while playing. Deaf
children often fail to respond with gestures or signs when their eyes are attracted
by the objects in motion, due to their difficulty with divide attention. While hear-
ing children can listen and answer simultaneously within the game, deaf children
must interact with one task at time. Moreover deaf children suffer from increased
distractibility and have different attention needs according to the literature. There-
fore the duration of the game should not be too long and composed of a single task
at a time [GL 3.5.3] . However, since deaf children are easily irritated, the timing
of games should be calibrated on the target deaf players [GL 3.5.4] . Deaf children
perceive immediately when they are treated differently, the older they grow and
the less impatient they become. Thus, the game should pay special attention to the
age of the child, e.g., the genre of texts and pictures should be age-appropriate
[GL 3.5.5] . Several studies show that children who played action video games
showed enhanced performance on all aspect of attention. Moreover, from our own
usability experiments with deaf and hearing children, it turns out that playing with
video games takes a large part of the deaf children's day, and is preferred over
other daily activities (e.g. TV, reading). So the training with games like action
games may be used to enhance deaf children's skills, in particular, for improving
their performance problem solving strategies [GL 3.5.6] , possibly enhancing their
working memory. According to our studies, human-like avatars guiding through
games [GL 3.5.7] were the most appreciated.

Acknowledgments. The authors' work was supported by TERENCE project, funded by the
EC through the FP7 for RTD, Strategic Objective ICT-2009.4.2, ICT, TEL.