Recommending Video Games to Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder for Social-Skill Enhancement

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a long-standing mental condition characterized by hindered mental growth and development and is a lifelong disability for the majority of affected individuals. In 2018, 2-3% of children in the USA have been diagnosed with autism. As these children move to adulthood, they have difficulty in developing a well-functioning motor skill. Some of these abnormalities, however, can be gradually improved if they are treated appropriately during their adulthood. Studies have shown that people with ASD enjoy playing video games. Educational games, however, have been primarily developed for children with ASD, which are too primitive for adults with ASD. We have developed a gaming and personalized recommender system that suggests therapeutic games to adults with ASD which can improve their social-interactive skills. The gaming system maintains the entertainment value of the games to ensure that adults are interested in playing them, whereas the recommender system suggests appropriate games for adults with ASD to play. The effectiveness and merit of our gaming and recommender system is backed up by an empirical study.