Fanima! Pervasive Serious Game for Phonetic-Phonological Assessment of Children Towards Autonomous Speech Therapy

Many children have difficulties with speech and language, sometimes even both. Speech therapy for children is usually a tedious process where one of the drawbacks of traditional solutions is the repetition of exercises. A known strategy to increase engagement is to deliver speech therapy through mobile games. A serious game-based diagnosis tool for phonetic-phonological assessment of speech disorders focused on the European Portuguese language was designed with therapists’ participation. The integration with a web platform allows real-time therapist interaction to control the game based on the classification of vocalisations made by the child in response to the gameplay, which follows the therapeutic structure for the intended diagnosis. One first user study was made with five speech therapists to validate the tool’s concept and the system’s usability for responding to the therapeutic requirements. The results are positive, validating the tool and suggesting its acceptance by the community of therapists, allowing us to move on to a thorough second study with therapists in a therapeutic context with children.