Designing Gamified E-Learning Applications for Children with

Down’s Syndrome

The Case of Teaching Literacy and Language Skills

Igor Vieira

, Antão Moura

, Uwe Terton

, Mark Bilby

and Marcelo Barros

Systems and Computing Department, Federal University of Campina Grande, Brazil

Engage Research Lab, University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia

Keywords: Down Syndrome, Computer-Supported Education, Gamification, Literacy, Language Acquisition, Require-

ments Engineering, United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).

Abstract: Down’s syndrome (DS) is the most common genetic cause of intellectual disability worldwide, with language

being one of the most affected area. Language skills and literacy acquisition thus require special care. It is

still rare to use software to support such care while, simultaneously, providing education and entertainment.

This paper presents results of research on the design of gamified software applications to support pedagogical

processes of literacy and language acquisition, making them fun, motivating and effective for children with

DS. The paper analyses rankings of design domains of gamified e-learning applications done earlier in the

research according to pedagogical benefits in entertaining education of DS children. The paper is believed to

offer contributions to requirements engineering of e-learning, gamified software applications in general and

to computer-assisted education of DS children in particular. The paper directly contributes to the concretiza-

tion of article 24 (access to Education) of the General Principles, Accessibility, of the United Nations Con-

vention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). Usage of applications that implement most

beneficial requirements may also indirectly contribute to UNCRPD article 19 –Living independently and be-

ing included in the community; article 21 – access to Information and communication services; and, article

27 - Work and employment.

1 INTRODUCTION

The Global Down Syndrome Foundation

(www.globaldownsyndrome.org) estimates the

worldwide population of people with DS to exceed 6

million. This estimate should significantly increase in

the next 20 years because of the increase of live births

and lifespan of people with DS. DS is caused by extra

genetic material in chromosome 21. (Henceforth,

individuals with DS will be referred to as “DS

individuals”.) The extra material influences

development, being the most common cause of

intellectual disability.

If not for the economics of its growing population,

the importance of providing services for DS

individuals derives from the United Nations

(www.un.org) Convention on the Rights of Persons

with Disabilities (UNCRPD). Amongst its articles,

UNCRPD establishes the rights of persons with

disabilities to education (article 24), to living

independently and community inclusion (19), to

access information and communications services (21)

and to work and employment (27). Literacy and

articulation facilitate claiming and guaranteeing

these rights. Unfortunately, in DS, language is one of

the most affected areas and it is common for

individuals with SD display deficits in both receptive

and expressive vocabulary (Cleland et al., 2010)

(Owens, 2013) and present specific developmental

challenges in phonology, syntax and some aspects of

pragmatics when trying to express the language

(Martin, 2009).

Studies suggest that the process of teaching

language and literacy skills should start early on to

avoid speech and language acquisition difficulties

lasting until adulthood (Martin, 2009). Pedagogical

efforts for DS children are usually supported by

games, songs, play, and oral motor exercises

(Ghirello-Pires, 2016). Such support is often

implemented manually, at a slow pace, by specialists,

therapists, and instructors dedicated to teaching DS

children, mainly because e-Learning tools and

applications specifically designed for DS users are

102

Vieira, I., Moura, A., Terton, U., Bilby, M. and Barros, M.

Designing Gamiﬁed E-Learning Applications for Children with Down’s Syndrome.

DOI: 10.5220/0006684701020113

In Proceedings of the 10th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2018), pages 102-113

ISBN: 978-989-758-291-2

still scarce. Further, lack of automation makes it

challenging to customize support for individual DS

users: excessive repetition and other discomfort

causes (e.g., hearing impairment) may demotivate

users to carry on with certain pedagogical drills and

thus, reduce their learning performance.

Reports on the use of educational software

including serious games to stimulate the cognitive

and motor processes of DS children are beginning to

accumulate in the literature (Torrente et al., 2012)

(Augusto et al., 2013) (Buzzi et al., 2016).

Nevertheless, one still needs e-Learning software

applications that: are specifically designed for DS

contexts, with drill creation and customization

facilities; gamified - i.e., have built in game-based

features; alternate realities to motivate doing “real

world” activities; are more productive for

professionals; and, are more attractive to DS students,

maintaining their engagement. The literature

however, scantly addresses the design of e-Learning

gamified apps for literacy and language acquisition

by DS children in a way that blends interactive

learning and entertainment both in the app virtual

reality and that of the actual world. (Here, such apps

are referred to as DS GeL-apps for short.)

This paper adds to the literature on DS GeL-apps

to teach literacy and language skills to DS audiences

by proposing a generic design for these applications

and examining their major requirements. It expands

analysis of an initial ranking of requirements domains

and discusses requirements for the top ranked

domain. As such, the paper contributes to the

implementation of UNCRPD, to computer-supported

education of DS children, and to software design and

requirements engineering.

The remaining contents of the paper are organized

as follows. Section 2 briefly surveys the academic

literature and products on proposed or existing

gamified apps for entertaining and educating DS

children. Section 3 presents the methodology adopted

for developing DS GeL-apps. Section 4 proposes a

generic architectural design for these apps and

summarizes initial findings of an ongoing research to

elicit their requirements. Section 5 expands previous

results on ranking requirements domains of DS GeL-

apps. Section 6 discusses requirements for the top

ranked domain. Section 7 brings conclusions and

suggestions for further research.

2 RELATED WORK

Game-Based Learning (GBL) uses game concepts

and technology to teach a particular target audience

and to motivate the audience to learn. GBL is

becoming increasingly common in the area of

education and some of the contributing factors for

that are, as Shih, Squire and Lau (2010) claim, the fact

that there are no limitations of subject or course to the

use of this practice and that, with the development of

pervasive communications technology, students have

been allowed to play and learn in a social community,

so that, when well applied, the students’ motivation is

higher and the learning performance can be

improved. Gamification of educational apps just like

GBL makes good use of these factors.

The literature on the use of gamification in

education in general was surveyed by Caponetto et al.

(2014) who argued that interest in gamification is due

to its capacity to support learning, promoting

desirable attitudes, activities and behaviors through

participatory approaches; collaboration and friendly

competition; self-guided study; facilitation and

effectiveness of assessments; integration of

exploratory approaches to learning; and the

strengthening of creativity and student retention.

However, there are still few gamified approaches for

teaching audiences with special needs, with DS in

particular.

Among the few reports on gamified approaches

for teaching audiences with special needs, one may

cite: Colpani and Homem (2015) propose a new

educational framework with the use of virtual reality

and gamification to aid in the learning by children

with intellectual disabilities. The limitation of the set

of requirements for the framework and it its

pioneering approach require new research and

experiments to verify the effectiveness of this

framework in practice; and the serious game

Moviletrando (Farias et al., 2013) to stimulate the

motor and cognitive functions of DS children, while

assisting in literacy teaching: children move around

in a virtual reality game to learn the letters of the

alphabet. Although this game teaches fundamentals

of literacy (the alphabet), it does not consider the

process of acquisition of oral and written language by

its players; others examples of serious games are the

Jecripe 2 (Brandão and Joselli, 2015) that attempt to

stimulate the cognitive process, the memory, the

phonological awareness in DS children and Torrente’s

(2012) “My First Day at Work” that was design to

train a specific set of social and self-autonomy skills

and concepts in adults with DS adults and “The Big

Party” that work on the inclusion of individuals with

DS in the job market. However, they do not focus on

literacy acquisition.

Studies on the use of educational software and

tools – not necessarily gamified – to facilitate

Designing Gamiﬁed E-Learning Applications for Children with Down’s Syndrome

103

learning and stimulate the cognitive process in DS

contexts include those by Fernández-López et al.

(2013) and Campigotto, Mcewen and Epp (2013).

These works argue how mobile devices support the

learning by DS children and they help the children

maintain attention and focus on particular stimuli.

However, since neither study used software aimed at

DS children only, some of the important special needs

that these children possess may not have been

considered, leaving room for further analysis on the

subject.

There are also studies on the benefits of tangible

tools for the development of literacy and reading

skills in DS children, such as Jardan-Guerrero et al.

(2015) and Haro, Santana and Magaña (2012). In

these studies, tangible tools seem to reduce the

consequences of attention deficit, making the learning

more fun and interactive. However, few statistical

results on the impact of these tools on the learning by

DS children were considered.

Implementation of DS GeL-apps may

complement the related works in this section by

allowing real-life experiments to further validate the

presented arguments. Further, the design of DS GeL-

apps as proposed in this paper, builds on the findings

and recommendations of said works by combining

mobile devices, Web (virtual) facilities and actual

world resources to harness multiple-source benefits.

3 DESIGN METHODOLOGY

In general, a DS GeL-app targets two audiences:

players and supervisors. Players are DS children who

play the gamified app to acquire literacy and language

skills. Supervisors are professionals who teach,

develop or provide assistance or materials for

teaching DS players. Supervisors include

pedagogues, psychologists, authors, teachers,

instructors, monitors, game designers, relatives and

people who assist, produce, apply or use literacy

material for DS children such as speech therapists and

linguists. A DS GeL-app must be designed to provide

facilities and resources to support both audiences.

The proposed methodology to design DS Gel-

apps follows an agile (Larman, 2004), iterative and

interactive approach with representatives from both

audiences functioning as clients. The methodology

has 8 steps:

1. List requirements for DS educational software

apps and games. The list is built by eliciting

requirements from: a) interviews with DS

individuals and their relatives; b) perceptions

of user needs and experiences with software

tools by professionals working with DS and

app or game design; c) analyses and usages of

educational software products, games and tools

for authorship and presentation of lessons and

entertainment for the general public or for DS

individuals in particular; and, d) the literature

on educational software in general or which

was gamified for DS students.

2. Parse the resulting list to consolidate

semantically equivalent requirements, but with

different syntaxes. Only one equivalent

requirement must be left in the list so that they

become mutually exclusive and thus serve to

separate and organize domains in the design,

implementation and test of the gamified,

pedagogical software application of interest.

3. Identify design-implementation domains of

requirements in the consolidated list. (A

requirements domain is a grouping of

requirements which will be implemented as a

unit, according to a common set of rules and

procedures, to support a common, specific

purpose - such as inputting and displaying

information or offering communications

facilities.) Distribute listed requirements

amongst the identified domains.

4. Consult clients on the relative importance

(ranking) of the resulting domains of

requirements for the intended activities of

teaching DS children literacy and language

skills.

5. To organize design and implementation of DS

GeL-apps evolutionary versions, specify

requirements for the ranked domains, by

checking existing requirements or eliciting

new ones, and validate the resulting

requirements with clients.

6. Depending on objectives (e.g., elicit an initial

set of requirements or enrich existing set),

constraints (e.g. time-to-launch a test

prototype), and validation results, cycle

through steps I to IV to account for clients’

comments or suggestions of changes or

additions of domains or requirements.

7. Lay out or update a roadmap for versioning of

the DS GeL-app of interest by packaging

requirements from the ranked domains. An

individual package of requirements defines the

scope of a next evolutionary version of the DS

GeL-app and encompasses the scope of the

CSEDU 2018 - 10th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

104

previous version - i.e., versions are to have

increasing utility for the intended audiences.

8. Implement, test, launch, and validate next

version of the DS GeL-app according to the

next package down the evolution road.

If a new version is to be implemented with

requirements to be adjusted or yet to be elicited, cycle

through steps I to VI. If not, cycle through step VII.

Steps I to III produce a set of generic requirements

for a DS GeL-app; steps IV and V adapt requirements

for the context of literacy and language acquisition;

step VI consolidates the domains / requirements into

ranked sets, that is, prioritized sets, which will serve

to guide the evolution of versions of DS GeL-apps.

Step VII transforms the research effort on the design

of DS GeL-apps into practical software offerings

whose usage will create more pathways, in terms of

feedback by DS audiences, for such research. These

steps can be better observed in Figure 1 below, where

a flow chart is presented with the step-by-step of the

methodology.

Figure 1: Proposed methodology for the design and imple-

mentation of DS GeL-apps.

Validation studies (rankings) are carried out in

steps IV, V and VII. Ranking is important for it

supports decisions on the profile and quantity of

resources to be allocated for application R&D.

Clients are the linchpin of such rankings. Their

opinions or votes steer the design and development of

DS GeL-app, as they (should) do with other software

applications. In ranking requirements domains (or

requirements within a domain), one may decide to

attribute different weights to the votes (rankings) of

individual clients (validators) to reflect their

experiences with DS, say. Further, if voting clients are

set into classes, say C = {DS Children, Parents,

Instructors, Psychologists, Game Designers}, one

may in turn attribute a weight to each class c ϵ C. If

that is the case, the Overall Rank of a domain











, for  = 1, 2, …,  where  is the total

number of domains in step IV, is given by the

weighted sum of ranks attributed by voting clients

within each class c ϵ C:











∑







∀

∗



∑





∗









∀∈

 (1)

Where 



is the weight of ’s vote (for

a given rank =1,2,…,) and 







is the vote (rank)

of  for domain 



, with 1







.

Without loss of generality, here it is assumed that 0 





1; 0  



1; and,

∑



∀

1 and

∑



∀

1.

In a “perfect” democracy scenario, all validators

(voting clients) are considered equal and each of their

votes carries the same weight – i.e., all voting clients

belong to a single class and for any client (discrete

uniform distribution), where is the total number of

voting clients. Equation (1) collapses then, into a

simple arithmetic average.

In another interesting ranking scenario, one may

want to seek consensus amongst voting clients. For

that, a Delphi technique (Hsu and Sandford, 2017)

may be used in steps IV, V and VII. In the Delphi

technique, each opining client anonymously registers

and justifies the ranks s/he attributes to requirements

domains (or requirements within a domain) in

writing. To seek consensus, the written, anonymous

registers are shown to all clients participating in the

ranking who may then decide to alter their rankings

in the next “voting” round, influenced by the

justifications they read. For brevity purposes, the

number of rounds is kept small, usually 2.

This methodology was defined based on the

second principle of the agile manifesto: "Welcome

changing requirements, even late in development.

Agile process harness change for the customer's

competitive advantage" (agilemanifesto.org/iso/en/

principles). DS GeL-apps’ users present cognitive

characteristics which are complex, heterogeneous

and, difficult to categorize and to model. These

characteristics require greater attention to the process

of requirements elicitation and validation to improve

the system usability and accessibility.

In addition, according to Leffingwell (1997),

about 40% to 60% of all problems encountered in a

software development project occur due to flaws in

Designing Gamiﬁed E-Learning Applications for Children with Down’s Syndrome

105

the requirements process. Such flaws are caused by

the use of inadequate techniques for design by

developers and the fact that there is no standard

design technique. The 8-step methodology in Figure

1 allows one to perform repeated cycles of

requirements elicitation and validation to ensure that

elicited requirements are as close to users'

expectations as possible. However, cycling through

all steps of the methodology takes time, years even, if

feedback from actual DS GeL-app usage is to

influence the design and engineering of later versions.

The investigation herein reported upon is in its

beginnings, having reached step V in a first pass.

The Research Question (RQ) of interest of the

investigation is: Which are the most important

requirements for gamified, pedagogical applications

to support literacy and language skills acquisition by

children with Down’s syndrome? This paper brings

new results of and new insight into a first ranking

experiment in step IV (De Souza, Moura and

Ghirello-Pires, 2017); and, for step V, explores

possibilities for the requirements of the top ranked

design domain. Albeit its preliminary discussions, the

paper already creates pathways for further research

and the practical usage of results in directing and

prioritizing the development of software tools to

support literacy and language acquisition by DS

children.

4 BASIC ARCHITECTURAL

DESIGN, INITIAL

REQUIREMENTS AND

DESIGN DOMAINS

Architectural details of a DS GeL-app facilitate

elicitation of some requirements as well as

communication among development stakeholders

(e.g., designers, programmers, testers). Hence, this

section presents architectural elements of a DS GeL-

app first.

4.1 Basic Architecture

The high level, basic architecture for a DS GeL-app

consists of three modules (Figure 2): two major DS

service-oriented modules (one for each type of

audience); and, a third, to support marketplace

activities.

Figure 2: Basic DS GeL-app architecture.

The player module is to entertain the user (i.e., as

if playing a game for fun) while s/he studies lessons

or takes part in activities as part of pedagogical work.

Work may correspond to responding to drills, doing

assignments or homework and carrying out

“missions” – such as in a regular virtual or real game

or a combination of both, typical of alternate reality.

Work may be done alone, by a group of players or

under the supervision of parents or instructors.

Missions may be carried out online or offline, as well

as in the real world or both (alternate reality).

Successfully finished work leads to merit points and

rewards for the player. The player module is to be a

gamified app as in (Deterding, 2011), an app that

exhibits gaming characteristics to run on mobile

devices – such as smart phones or tablets – and even

on desktop machines connected to the Web.

The supervisor module is to run on the Web to

assist its users (supervisors) to prepare lessons,

customize player module’s pedagogical and

gamification characteristics (e.g., frequency of

answer attempts and rewarding) for individual or

group of players, check assigned work, define and

dispatch missions and monitor players’ performance.

This module supports the teacher’s role of mediator

of knowledge. Here, s/he can create activities

according to the needs of the students with the tools

provided by the system. In addition, it will be possible

for the teacher to customize some aspects of the

player module for a better student experience. In

essence, this module is to be an e-Learning authoring-

presentation tool of gamified lessons for DS children.

The architecture also includes a third,

marketplace module, to support advertising,

bartering, e-Business or even, a pay-wall. This

module transverses the other two, being accessible by

both types of audiences, or even, by the public at

CSEDU 2018 - 10th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

106

large. The marketplace module promotes

sustainability by generating revenue streams and

offers a practical and quick way for gamers to

exchange game points for tangible assets of the real

and virtual world, making the gamified apps more

attractive. The marketplace may be considered an

incidental module in DS literacy and language

acquisition contexts. It is included here for

comprehensiveness of the discussion on DS GeL-

apps structural elements and as basis for requirements

elicitation.

4.2 Requirements and Design Domains

Although there are common requirements of software

in general that are also applicable to DS GeL-apps

(e.g., user authentication), they are not discussed

here; nor are requirements related to specific lesson

contents which may vary to accommodate

pedagogical objectives and language characteristics.

The interest here lies in requirements that highlight

the differences that one should consider to the

advantage of both DS audiences. The differences may

be subtle at times, but the requirements of a game or

generic software and those of DS GeL-apps, in fact,

differ. For example, in game mechanics, the player is

usually penalized for not completing a certain task

after a certain number of attempts or within a tight

time limit. Depending on the context, the player may

even be punished with flashing messages on the

screen, rude music or verbal scolding. However, this

is not the case of DS contexts: there should be a more

elastic limit to the time or attempts and the mechanics

should persuade players to keep trying longer, by

providing frequent feedback and congratulating

players for their success.

Design domains and associated, example

requirements for DS GeL-apps were initially

presented in (De Souza, Moura and Ghirello-Pires,

2017) after a one pass through steps I to IV of the

proposed methodology in section 3: data collection

with clients in a) and b) of step I was done through

semi-structured interviews and produced a total of 19

requirements; I.c) produced 18 requirements (from

examined software); and, 82 in I.d) - literature review.

The 119 requirements were then reduced to 76 in step

II. These initial 76 requirements were then distributed

over 8 identified domains in step III. Table 1

summarizes results.

Table 1: DS GeL-app design domains and example require-

ments.

Table 1 offers a very initial set of requirements of

DS GeL-apps. Additional passes through the agile

methodology steps will consolidate this initial set

through elicitation and validation of additional

requirements. While an initial set serves to steer the

design of early but useful, versions, a consolidated set

of requirements, ranked in importance, will serve as a

reference for the evolutionary design of such apps.

Developers will thus have a basis for defining

software versions in terms of which requirements to

include in a new version of a gamified app, given their

importance in terms of utility for its audiences.

5 REQUIREMENTS VALIDATION

AND RANKINGS BY

IMPORTANCE OF DESIGN

DOMAINS

Additional interviews were carried out and surveys

were applied to clients in step IV. The questions in the

surveys were open format and intended to determine

the relative importance of the domains, validate their

requirements in the initial set of Table 1, and to

respond to the Research Question (RQ). As this

research on DS GeL-apps is being carried out by

Designing Gamiﬁed E-Learning Applications for Children with Down’s Syndrome

107

cooperating researchers in Brazil and in Australia, the

ranking and validation experiments involved clients

in these two countries.

In Brazil, nine clients participated in the

experiments: four parents of DS children (2 dentists,

1 with specialization in Letters, and 1 in Social

Work); and, five professionals working with DS (1

specialist in Vernacular Languages, 2 in Psychology,

1 in Speech Therapy, and 1 in Pedagogy). In

Australia, there were two software/game design

experts - one of which had an adult DS individual for

a sibling. Three classes of clients were then

represented in the experiments and functioned as

proxies for DS individuals: C = {Parents,

Professionals, Designers}. The average experience

with DS of the 11 class representatives was 9.6 years.

Note that, at this stage of the research, no DS

individual contributed to the ranking and validation

experiments directly. Note further, that the small

number of participating clients implies that results

should be taken as preliminary.

5.1 Validation and Ranking Results

The 9 validation-participating clients in Brazil

assessed each of the 76 requirements in the initial set,

with the following results: 39 of the requirements

were accepted “as initially presented”; the semantics

of 16 was adjusted (e.g., “unlimited repetitions” was

reworded to “customizable number of repetitions”);

16 new ones were added (e.g., “Use Artificial

Intelligence tools to monitor player performance and

adjust the pedagogical process”); and, 21 were

quarantined (e.g., “Use Italic Serif fonts”) – by giving

each of these, at least a vote for removal from the set

(De Souza, Moura and Ghirello-Pires, 2017). The

total of requirements could end up being 71 (76 + 16

-21) if all quarantined requirements are accepted

back; or, 92 (76 + 16) if all quarantined requirements

are removed. For rigor of statistical significance, one

should have all requirements, quarantined ones in

special, undergo further validation studies with more

clients (since their small number is a validation

threat).

The design domain with the most quarantined

requirements was "Navigation & Interface” and the

one with the highest “as initially presented”

acceptance rate was the “Authoring” domain.

Another domain with well accepted requirements (8

out of 11) was that of "Gamification Elements &

Incentives"; but this domain also had 2 out of 11

quarantined (“tangible rewards” and “leader boards”

might discourage players instead of motivating them).

The 16 new requirements were all accommodated in

the existing 8 domains.

All 11 participating clients found “unnecessary to

add to or discard domains from” those in Table 1.

They also thought that the requirements domains will

lead to useful implementations of DS GeL-apps for

teaching language acquisition and literacy to DS

children. When asked to rank the design domains in

terms of importance for these implementations - and

thus answer the Research Question of interest here,

their “perfect democracy” overall average ranking,

with 90% confidence intervals and 10 degrees of

freedom, is given in Figure 3. In this Figure, a domain

whose average rank is closer to 8 is considered the

most important; the one with lowest average rank, the

least important. In case of a tie of averages, the

domain with the narrower interval, or equivalently,

smaller variance or smaller standard deviation –

which would denote less doubt by the validators,

would be considered more important. (That is the case

with the two last domains on the far right of Figure

3).

Figure 3: Overall average ranking of DS GeL-app design

domains (mean and 90% confidence interval).

As shown in Figure 3, some domains have

overlapping confidence intervals and therefore, it is

not yet possible to identify with certainty, relative

priorities among most classes. However, it is possible

to affirm with 90% confidence that the “Navigation

& Interface” domain presents a significantly higher

importance - i.e. it is ranked in first place - than all

others, except for the “Inputs” domain, whose interval

[5.09; 7.45] overlaps that of “Navigation & Interface”

partially. It is also possible to state with 90%

confidence that the “Inputs” domain is more

important than the “Tools & Support” domain. The

sample means in Fig. 3 appear to indicate that the

“Gamification elements” domain, in the opinion of

the interviewees, is the least important.

CSEDU 2018 - 10th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

108

One possible reason for the “Gamification

elements” domain ranking last in importance is that

DS individuals are not themselves, part of set C. The

members of the classes in C, being designers, DS

professionals, and DS parents or relatives, may value

pedagogical content and instruction more than

entertainment. Indeed, Figures 4, 5 and 6 show

rankings by representatives of these classes – and

none brings the “Gamification elements” domain

higher than 4th place. In fact, this domain sports the

widest 90% confidence interval in all rankings,

making it the one domain whose importance

validators had the more doubts ranking.

Figure 4: Ranking by designers.

Figure 5: Ranking by professionals.

Figure 6: Ranking by parents. Rankings according to client

class of DS GeL-app design domains (mean and 90% con-

fidence intervals).

Variations in rankings due to client classes’

preferences may be emphasized by means of the

Principal Component Analysis (PCA) graph in Figure

7: most parents-relatives are grouped in the opposite

direction of the vector that represents the

“Gamification elements” domain, demonstrating that,

at least during this first validation experiment,

relatives believe that the other domains of

requirements - such as “Activities” and “Inputs” -

should have higher priority than the domain linked to

the elements of fun and motivation. Expert opinion

seems more varied, ranging from professionals’

opinions that the Gamification domain is to be ranked

higher in importance (specialists in red, to the left in

Fig. 7) to lower importance (specialists in green, to

the right in Fig. 7).

Figure 7: Behaviour of DS GeL-app stakeholders relative to

domains ranking (ordering).

DS children may not endorse the interviewed DS

professionals’ nor their own relatives’ rankings: a bit

of fun may make lessons more engaging for them.

(Does not the same apply to anyone?) Additionally,

the variations in Figures 4 and 5 suggest further

validation studies. Further validation studies should

have DS individuals as validators.

Interviewees' responses were given without them

experiencing any real software app or mock-ups (an

electronic model used to demonstrate functionality).

Validators had to imagine possible benefits and

constraints of the design domains and associated

requirements. Therefore, the validation that was

carried out is said to be a “face validity" (Gravetter

and Forzano, 2012), since it has a strong subjective

component embedded in its judgment. Due to such

subjectivity and the fact that the response sample

came from only = 11, 90% confidence intervals were

adopted. The subjectivity embedded in these results

may have been reduced however, since voting clients

Designing Gamiﬁed E-Learning Applications for Children with Down’s Syndrome

109

were experts on teaching literacy to DS children,

making results possibly consistent with their reality

(Holden, 2010).

Despite the discussed threats to validation and its

limitations, the interviewees provided (early)

evidence the answer to the Research Question at the

end of section 3, is “requirements for the Navigation

& Interface domain are the most important for DS

teaching of literacy and language acquisition”. So far,

this domain also happens to have the most

requirements.

6 DS NAVIGATION &

INTERFACE DESIGN

INSIGHTS

Cho, Cheng and Lai (2009) found that there are many

ways of conceptualising supported learning within

the Vygotskyan tradition, including scaffolding

(Wood, Bruner and Ross, 1976), assisted performance

(Tharp and Gallimore, 1989), dialogic enquiry

(Wells, 1999), guided participation (Rogoff et al.,

1993) and guided interaction (Plowman and Stephen,

2007).

To successfully develop a User Interface (UI) that

works not only for the learner but also for the

instructor it is important to take above perspectives

into account when analysing existing game-based

learning apps and non-game learning apps to gather

data for the development of a system and UI that helps

scaffolding the student technology-mediated

learning.

Preliminary data collected by visiting DS students

at special needs schools show that students get easily

stressed and upset by failing to interact successfully

with a variety of learning and teaching apps installed

on iPads. The frustration resulting into

discontinuation with the interaction of the learning

app is mainly due to cognitive overload.

Cognitive overload refers to the total amount of

mental effort being used in the working memory

(Sweller, 1988). Cognitive load theory developed by

Sweller has many implications in the design of

learning materials which must, if they are to be

effective, keep cognitive load of learners at a

minimum during the learning process (Culatta, 2016).

Cognitive workload is thought to be

multidimensional and multifaceted. Mental workload

can be defined as the ratio of demand to allocated

resources (Da Silva, 2014). Spirkovska (2005) writes

that multiple resource theory stresses the importance

of distribution of tasks and information across various

human sensory channels to reduce mental workload.

She continues stressing that one sensory channel has

been touch and that unlike the more typical displays

that target vision or hearing, tactile displays present

information to the user’s sense of touch.

The authors thought that they should investigate

the role of touch further to see how it could be used

as an add-on or alternative to auditory display based

UIs. It is hoped by providing the user with UI choices

that suit them best to be able to help reducing

cognitive overload.

As suggested by literature, it was decided to

develop a UI that is based on both visual and audio

and also looking into touch to provide input to the app

system and feedback to the user (auditory & sensory

displays). It is envisioned to investigate existing

specifically and practical guidelines, middle-level

principles and high-level theories and models as

suggested by Shneiderman, (2017) to apply best

practise and achieve a high-quality UI design.

Literature correspondingly recommends that

criteria for the design and evaluation of the user

interface of gamified language (literacy) multimedia

software (apps) need to be developed for the

prescribed audience and should be based on hybrid

models that are combining a cognitive and software

engineering approach (Park & Hannafin, 1993;

Ravden & Johnson, 1989). Those criteria will help to

determine if the UI is effective in supporting the

cognitive processes involved in learning linguistic

skills such as speech, memory and association.

Games and gamified apps can immerse players

through deep level engagement, intricate and

dynamic structures, high quality visuals and audio

and by providing highly rewarding experiences with

near instantaneous feedback (Terton and White,

2014).

Engagement within gameplay can be generated

through being challenged, through arousing the

players’ natural curiosity, by providing a sense of and

by stimulating the player’s imagination. To design for

games and gamified apps poses challenges due to the

individual nature of users’ playfulness and different

levels of experiences with games and play. Arrasvuori

et al. (2011) have developed the Playful Experiences

(PLEX) framework, which is a conceptual tool for

understanding the playful aspects of user experience

(UX) and at the same time also practical tool for

designing for experiences through established user

centred design (UCD) methods (Arrasvuori et al.,

2011). It is hoped to collect user data that helps in the

iterative development process of designing the best

visual and auditory UI for the game based app.

CSEDU 2018 - 10th International Conference on Computer Supported Education

110

But not only should the UI work best for the

students but also for the teacher, Frauenberger (2009)

has identified the need for a structured design

approach to create an UI that caters for both the

learner as well as the teacher. Frauenberger has

developed the paco – pattern design in the context

space framework, which provides methods to capture,

apply and refine design knowledge through design

patterns.

The goal is to design an effective dynamic system

personalised adaptive user interface (PAUI) that

automatically adapts to the individual skill levels of

the user and reacts to different situations and

requirements helping to minimise cognitive load,

facilitate learning. It is planned to have an operating

system that can detect and learn individual behaviour

patterns so that the PAUI can be changed to assist the

user in a more effective manner.

In order to achieve this, we analysed a number of

the existing platforms and applications that already

exist, to determine a way to minimise the cognitive

load for individuals with DS as well as being able to

better facilitate their learning in a way that is fun and

will encourage them to continue with their

development.

One of the applications that have been analysed

and should be commented on is the current preferred

system known as Proloquo2go, this application is

recognised at the most comprehensive available at the

moment and is used by organisations and therapists

for enabling individuals with a number of learning

disabilities.

The analysis of proloquo2go showed that

although it is an application more focused on creating

Augmentative and Alternative Communication

(AAC) than on literacy, it has presented several

important features that can be used to facilitate the

literacy process in individuals with DS making it a

very interesting tool for surveying and analyzing

requirements. However, because of the complexity of

the application there is a great potential for cognitive

overload from both user and a tutor who is unfamiliar

with the application; this most likely stems from the

applications customisability. Additionally, while the

proloquo2go application is comprehensive in its

learning structure it lacks the fun aspect that can

encourage a user to want to continue using it.

During the process of analysing applications,

particularly proloquo2go, a number of tutors (either

carers or therapists) mentioned that in a number of

cases the users needed a lot more guidance when

using the application than they had using traditional

assistance methods. After some time, analysing

applications, the complexity of some applications

showed that a user could easily get lost within the

programs and without guidance have trouble finding

their way around.

Resulting from the preliminary analysis and

interviews with carers and observations of user

interaction, it is planned to design a prototype that

utilises more than just a tablet device, adding a

measure of augmented reality to the learning

experience by coupling physical aspects to the

program through picto-cards or blocks, combining

audio visual cues with tactile interactions with real

objects to re-enforce learning and memory.

7 CONCLUDING REMARKS AND

FUTURE WORK

This paper dealt with a gamified, pedagogical

application to support literacy and language skills

acquisition by children with Down’s syndrome. Such

an application (DS GeL-app) will directly contribute

to the concretization of article 24 (access to

Education) of the General Principles, Accessibility, of

the United Nations Convention on the Rights of

Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). DS GeL-apps

may also indirectly contribute to UNCRPD article 19

– Living independently and being included in the

community; article 21 – access to Information and

communication services; and, article 27 - Work and

employment because of users providing with the

ability to learn how to communicate information

accurately, clearly and as intended. Through

improved speech and literacy skills the user will be

enabled to get around in the community,

communicate effectively with others (face-to-face

and using technology), and self- advocate or speak up

for themselves.

As the preceding sections have made clear, the

most important requirements of developing and

designing a gamified, pedagogical application to

support literacy and language skills acquisition by

children with Down’s syndrome are about the learner

and instructor. The paper provides information on

how to arrive at a selection of requirements needed to

develop successful DS GeL-apps by analyzing an

initial ranking (agile methodology) of requirement

domains carried out by cooperating researchers and

clients in Brazil and in Australia.

Additional passes through the agile methodology

steps will consolidate initial sets through elicitation

and validation of additional requirements. The initial

set serves to direct the design of early but useful

versions. A more consolidated set of requirements,

Designing Gamiﬁed E-Learning Applications for Children with Down’s Syndrome

111

ranked by importance, will serve as a reference for the

evolutionary design of the DS GeL-apps and thus be

the basis for defining different software versions of

the app by ranking importance in terms of utility for

its audiences.

Early evidence based feedback sought through

client interviews indicates “requirements for the

Navigation & Interface domain” is the most important

domain for DS teaching of literacy and language

acquisition and has the most requirements. Analyzing

all results indicates that the DS GeL-app project is

mainly a task of interface design and interaction

features (Inputs), with playful aspects and socializa-

tion assuming a secondary position. Further to the

ranking method it is suggested to conduct real-life

experiments to supplement the validation of findings

and recommendations of said works by combining

mobile devices, Web (virtual) facilities and actual

world resources to harness multiple-source benefits.

The paper reasons to support pedagogical

processes of literacy and language acquisition,

making them fun, motivating, engaging and effective

for children with Down Syndrome (players) and at the

same time allowing specialists (supervisors), such as

educators, therapists, and instructors to manage

content and pedagogical strategies. Paramount to a

successful application is a user interface (UI) that

caters for both the learner as well as the instructor.

Informed by literature it is advisable to proceed with

a pattern design framework, that provides methods to

capture, apply and refine design knowledge through

design patterns resulting in a powerful and effective

dynamic system personalised adaptive user interface

(PAUI) that automatically adapts to the individual

skill levels of the user and reacts to different

situations and requirements helping to minimise

cognitive load and therefore facilitating learning.

7.1 Limitations

The architectural details of a DS GeL-app that will

facilitate elicitation of requirements as well as

communication among development stakeholders

(e.g., designers, programmers, testers) will be

developed in later phases. Although there are

common requirements of software in general that are

also applicable to DS GeL-apps (e.g., user

authentication), they were not discussed here; nor

were requirements related to specific lesson contents

which may vary to accommodate pedagogical

objectives and language characteristics. The small

number of participating clients implies that results

should be taken as preliminary. Also, data and

feedback were mainly gathered from researchers and

clients and not from children with DS. This should

occur in the next phases of the project.

7.2 Future

The paper already creates pathways for further

research and the practical usage of results in directing

and prioritizing the development of software tools to

support literacy and language acquisition by DS

children that hopefully will improve the quality of life

for DS children. With help of a team including

speech-language pathologists, physicians, classroom

teachers, special educators and families we plan to

communicate with DS children to co-design the DS

GeL-app to cater for their needs and arrive at a fun

and engaging application that helps to address the

speech and language problems faced by many

children with Down syndrome.

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