ComFiM: a game for multitouch devices to encourage communication between people with autism

At about 50% of the people diagnosed with autism have problems in developing any kind of functional language. Having this is mind, we developed a game, called ComFiM, for multitouch devices, aiming to encourage communication between people with autism. This paper presents the development and evaluation of ComFiM, exposing design decisions and results. ComFiM was developed based on requirements of a group of children with a severe degree of autism. The game was evaluated following research aspects related to the perception of each player's interlocutor and communication intentions observed between the players to collaborate with each other. Tests were carried out for 9 weeks with 4 children with autism. Results indicate that both the environment provided by the technology used as well as the design decisions of the game have stimulated the players' communication intentions.