Looney Labs Educators Mailing list Archive

[Edu] Re: Thesis Research - Redesigning games to facilitate inclusion

  • FromJeff Zeitlin <icehouse@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • DateMon, 09 Oct 2006 13:55:02 -0400
On Mon,  9 Oct 2006 12:00:36 -0400 (EDT), Lisa Timman
<maguirlm@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>I am a graduate student at the University of Cincinnati's College of 
>Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning.  As a part of my thesis 
>research, I am looking for ways to use my background in Graphic 
>Design/Visual Communication to facilitate social inclusion for children 
>with disabilities.

>I am investigating how to redesign an established board game (e.g. 
>Candyland/Chutes and Ladders) that will facilitate inclusion in the 
>family setting among parents and siblings .  As an alternative to 
>redesigning a board game, I am also open to opportunities for designing 
>visual devices that can help facilitate play, such as helping a child 
>to initiate play, join play circles, etc.

>I would love to hear your feedback on my topic and any issues you have 
>encountered as a teacher or parent in facilitating play and social 
>inclusion for children with disabilities. Either in engaging in board 
>game play with children with disabilities, or observing such play, what 
>issues have you perceived?  Or, what things have you observed that has 
>prohibited children with disabilities from engaging in play with 
>typical peers ? either being included or initiating play?

Strictly speaking, I don't qualify to comment as I'm not in any of the
categories you mention - but from a layman's point of view, I think
you're going to need to be more specific about what you're interested
in.

Different disabilities are going to need different accommodations in
different games; a child who lacks fine motor control skills is going to
need a different accommodation to play Candyland than a child who is
visually impaired - and two children with different visual impairments
(e.g., one sightless and one colorblind) are going to need different
accommodations to play Candyland.

Also, even given two children with the same disability, and the same
targetted game, the children will respond differently to a given
stimulus, and that's going to need to be taken into account.

Obviously, any given combination of disability and game is going to
require certain 'baseline' adjustments to the game; continuing with
Candyland as an example, at the very minimum, any accommodation for
blind children is going to require some sort of non-visual feedback
mechanism that will allow the child to differentiate between colors
(both on the cards and the board) and to identify and sequence spaces on
the board and identify the special spaces that exist.

Anecdotally, the biggest obstacle to children with disabilities being
included in play with non-disabled children is going to be the attitude
of the other children - it can be difficult to get children to
understand that they can't interact with Johnny like they can with
Billy, because Johnny can't see/hear/walk/whatever the way Billy can,
and changing patterns of thought and of habitual action - especially
where such changes require a constant, ongoing effort - is going to be
difficult, and forcing the accommodation to be made is going to
ultimately be counterproductive, as the children forced into the
accommodation are going to develop a resentment of the handicapped
child. A more successful approach is often going to be to accommodate
the child with disabilities by designing activities that THAT child can
do, and which will interest the rest of the group - for example, board
games for the child with mobility restrictions - and accept that
sometimes, some children are going to be left out or disinterested,
regardless of what sort of activity is involved.

Ultimately, the best that a parent/teacher/adult guide is going to be
able to do is to do their best to explain to the group what Johnny's
limitations are, and encourage the group to find ways to include Johnny.
The adult can offer suggestions, but in the final analysis, the children
are going to need to WANT to include Johnny before it will be possible
to keep him involved.