Health Sciences
DIG4IT: Digital Intervention Games for Implementing Therapy
Specific phobias in children are upsetting and debilitating because of the extreme fear and avoidance of animals, insects, needles, blood, vomit, enclosed spaces, heights, certain foods and noises, and many other situations that are part of day-to-day life. It is often difficult to engage children in therapeutic activities for phobias, because therapy can be seen as stigmatising, tiresome and ‘school-like’.
Given the popularity of gaming with children, we wanted to develop a “serious game” that can help them learn and apply clinically informed therapy techniques independently and intuitively without relying on lengthy explanations or demonstrations from a therapist.
The aim of the project is to develop a game to help children understand and apply graded exposure therapy for specific phobias. This can be done by translating the principles and techniques of a comprehensive graded exposure therapy programme into gaming mechanics, which age-appropriate playful activities accessed via a digital interface.
We held a series of co-production workshops that brough together the expertise of professionals from healthcare and education, the experience of children and adolescents, the support of parents and carers, and the skills of game designers and software engineers. The workshops with professionals and game designers included a presentation and a discussion group, whereas the workshops with children and parents were interactive with “physical” rather than digital games games, quizzes, panel shows, small group brainstorming, whole group discussions and wind-down activities.
Related links
EPSRC-funded PhD award: Intelligent Games and Games Intelligence (IGGI) Doctorate Training Programme
Case study: Co-production reference guide for academic researchers
Audio podcast: The Story of Children’s Mental Health
Talk: University of York Research Impact Conference
Funding
| Funder | Wellcome Trust through the Centre for Future Health at the University of York (Knowledge Exchange, Impact & Translation - KIT Fund) |
| Start date | 01 January 2018 |
| End date | 31 December 2018 |
Members
Internal staff
- Lina Gega (Chief Investigator)
- Sebastian Deterding
- Kerry Cipriano
- John Gray
External collaborators
