ITaCaS: a serious game and an expert system to support the teaching of sexual-health and hygiene for youth with intellectual disability

Abstract

In Ecuador, according to the National Council for Disability Equality (CONADIS, acronym in Spanish) there are 485,325 people with disabilities, being the intellectual disability the one with the highest incidence, with a prevalence of 108,312 people. In developing countries, there are still insufficient resources for teaching Sexual Health and Hygiene (SHH) to people with disabilities. Thus, it is essential to apply strategies that help teenagers with intellectual disabilities to learn about sexual health and self-care. Therefore, this article presents an educational game and an expert system called “I take care of myself” (ITaCaS) which aims to assist in the teaching of the SHH for young people with intellectual disabilities, with ages between 12 and 17 years old. The expert system helps to determine educational activities to be carried out by the teacher with the teenager, based on their profile and prior knowledge of 13 SHH educational topics. The pictures of the game were specially designed for disabled people. The proposal was validated through a study that was carried out in two special education centers with 30 experts in the field of special education. The obtained results are encouraging since they show great acceptance by the participants of this experiment.