Design and Effectiveness of a Serious Game for Children with ADHD

The need for engaging treatment approaches within mental healthcare has led to the application of gaming approaches to existing behavioural 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 behaviour skills that generalise to daily life situations. Therefore, we developed a new serious game (called ‘‘Plan-It Commander’’) that was specifically designed to promote behavioural strategies in domains of daily life functioning such as time management, planning/organizing, and prosocial (i.e., cooperation) 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 chapter, game development and the scientific background of the behavioural 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. Development and user satisfaction of “Plan-It Commander”, a serious game for children with ADHD 19