Piloting a Mobile Game for Behavioral Therapy

A Gamified Mobile Platform for Improving Social Communication in Children With Autism

The following study aims to understand the feasibility of the mobile app and game, GuessWhat, to deliver behavioral therapy to children with autism. The GuessWhat app is a charades style game that engages parent and child in fluid social interaction where the parent must guess what the child is acting out based on the prompt shown on the phone screen. Participants will use their own personal phone to download the study app. The app will walk participants through a variety of charades style games. The interactive games will be video recorded and all data are transferred securely to the Wall Lab for analysis. This study is enrolling parents of children with ASD who are at least 18 years of age and have a child between 3-12 years old. Parents are asked to complete questionnaires before and after playing the GuessWhat game with their child 3-4 times per week for 4 weeks.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Autism Spectrum Disorder; Autism
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: GuessWhat Mobile Application

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 186
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• United States
  • California
    • Stanford, California, United States, 94305
      • Stanford University

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 3 years to 12 years (CHILD)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Parent who is at least 18 years old of child with autism.
• Child with autism is between 3 and 12 years old at time of baseline data collection.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Parent is not able to read or speak English
• Parent does not have an Android or iOs smartphone compatible with GuessWhat App

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: OTHER
• Allocation: NON_RANDOMIZED
• Interventional Model: PARALLEL
• Masking: NONE

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
EXPERIMENTAL: Treatment; Treatment group used GuessWhat during the 4 week intervention period.	Other: GuessWhat Mobile Application; The GuessWhat app is a charades style game and app that engages parent and child in fluid social interaction where the parent must guess what the child is acting out based on the prompt shown on the phone screen. Participants will use their own personal phone to download the study app. Parent and child will be encouraged to play using the emojis and emotion game mode at least 3 individual game sessions per week. Parents are asked to play GuessWhat with their child 3-4 times per week for 4 weeks.
OTHER: Control; Participants in control group received standard treatment as usual.	Other: GuessWhat Mobile Application; The GuessWhat app is a charades style game and app that engages parent and child in fluid social interaction where the parent must guess what the child is acting out based on the prompt shown on the phone screen. Participants will use their own personal phone to download the study app. Parent and child will be encouraged to play using the emojis and emotion game mode at least 3 individual game sessions per week. Parents are asked to play GuessWhat with their child 3-4 times per week for 4 weeks.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in parent reported social responsiveness from week 0 to week 4	The Social Responsiveness Scale-2 is a 65-item measure where parents rate their child selecting responses on a Likert Scale. This measure will be used to measure and identify social impairment associated with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and to quantify its severitySocial Responsiveness Scale (SRS) raw scores measure social abilities with lower scores indicating better social skills. (Raw Score Range: 0 - 195 and T-Score Range: 37- above 90).	Baseline (Week 0), Week 4
Change in parent reported socialization subscale scores of the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales,2nd Edition (VABS-II) from baseline to week 4	Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, 2nd edition (VABS-II) Socialization subscale of the Parent/Caregiver Comprehensive form will be administered online to the parents. Scores from the socialization domain of the VABS-III reflects one's functioning in social situations. The socialization subscale is 32 items, where raw scores are converted to IQ-type standard scores--v-scale scores (M=15, SD=3) where scores range from 1 to 24, and factor in age equivalents, growth scale values, and higher scores indicate better adaptive functioning.	Baseline (Week 0), Week 4

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Parent reported feedback	Qualitative survey delivered to parent participants at Week 4 to understand preferred games, overall feedback including likes and dislikes, any technical issues they experienced or challenges in using the app.	Week 4
GuessWhat App Usage Data	App usage data comprised of game decks selected, number of game sessions started, ended, and shared.	4 weeks
Change in parent reported communication subscale scores of the Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales,2nd Edition (VABS-II) from baseline to week 4	Vineland Adaptive Behavior Scales, 2nd edition (VABS-II) Communication subscale of the Parent/Caregiver Comprehensive form will be administered online to the parents. Scores from the communication domain of the VABS-III reflects The communication subscale is 32 items, where raw scores are converted to IQ-type standard scores--v-scale scores (M=15, SD=3) where scores range from 1 to 24, and factor in age equivalents, growth scale values, and higher scores indicate better adaptive functioning.	Baseline (Week 0), Week 4

Other Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Baseline Parent Reported Social Communication	The Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) screens for autism in children over 4:0 years in age. Parents are asked 40 Yes/No questions and the resulting score is out of 39 (the first question is not associated with a numerical value). The SCQ assesses a child's communication skills and social functioning. It takes less than 10 minutes to complete and is administered by clinical research coordinators to parents of children during the phone screen to participants who have already completed the online screening questionnaire. A score of 15 or above is indicative of autism and is required to be eligible in the research study.	Baseline (Week 0)

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Stanford University

Publications and helpful links

Helpful Links

• Study Website

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (ACTUAL): October 1, 2019
• Primary Completion (ACTUAL): December 1, 2020
• Study Completion (ACTUAL): December 31, 2020

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: June 24, 2020
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: June 24, 2020
• First Posted (ACTUAL): June 29, 2020

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (ACTUAL): February 3, 2021
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: February 1, 2021
• Last Verified: February 1, 2021

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: mobile health; autism; game; technology; therapy; digital
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Neurodevelopmental Disorders; Child Development Disorders, Pervasive; Autistic Disorder; Autism Spectrum Disorder
• Other Study ID Numbers: 39562

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No