ICT-AAC Zanimalica

A serious game for easier mastering of new concepts related to people's occupations

The educational game ICT-AAC Zanimalica is intended for children with autism spectrum disorders and intellectual disabilities, but also for children with normal development for easier mastering of new concepts related to people's occupations. It includes 40 professions that are described by stories with text, pictograms and sound. The goal is to teach the players the names of the professions, what these professions are for, where we find people who work in these professions and why these professions are important for the player himself.

The game is also suitable for use by people with color recognition disorders, due to the color contrast of the text and its background. A font suitable for dyslexic people was also used.

The game is divided into two parts: acquiring new knowledge about occupations and checking knowledge about occupations. By opening the main menu, the user has the option of choosing between the categories Tell me a story, Find a person and Find a place. Tell me a story has the goal of learning, while Find a person and Find a place have the goal of checking acquired knowledge.

The acquisition of new knowledge will be achieved in the form of a multimedia encyclopedia on occupations. Each occupation will contain several educational multimedia stories. Each story will be supported by text, sound and images.

Knowledge of professions will be tested in the form of a multimedia quiz. The quiz questions will be available in the form of text and audio recording, while the answers provided will be available in the form of image and audio recording. The quiz consists of 5 questions. If the player answers incorrectly, a red X appears on the button, the name of the chosen profession is played, followed by a sound indicating that the answer is incorrect. In this context, the appearance of a red X and the playing of a sound indicating the incorrectness of the answer is used as negative feedback. A correct answer also plays the name of that profession, but this time positive reinforcement is used in the form of a green tick, playing a sound for the correct answer and awarding the player one star. The quiz ends with the collection of all 5 stars, i.e. with the correct answer to all 5 questions. Each time the quiz is started, new questions are generated.