Developing Kinect Games Integrated with Virtual Reality on Activities of Daily Living for Children with Developmental Delay

Children with developmental delay (DD) often have difficulty in executing activities of daily living (ADL). Although independence in ADL is one of the ultimate goals of rehabilitation for children with DD, ADL training is challenging in the contexts of hospitals and clinics due to a lack of natural settings, and the difficulty in transferring the skills learned in hospitals and clinics to home environment. Kinect games integrated with virtual reality (VR) simulating a home environment can provide a natural environment for effective ADL training on children with DD. Thus, the aim of the study is to develop game-based ADL training tasks using Kinect integrated with VR for children with DD. Kinect games for training purposes are developed. In addition, two pilot studies are conducted for typically developing children and children with DD aged 3–5.9 years respectively to test the applicability of Kinect games. Kinect games integrated with VR designed for ADL training provide opportunities for children with DD to practice ADL in simulated real-life situations, which reinforces the effectiveness of training at clinics and decreases the burn of caregivers in training the child. The efficiency and feasibility of ADL training could thus be improved.