VISUAL FUNCTION TESTING AND TRAINING FOR CHILDREN WITH DIFFERENT VISUAL IMPAIRMENTS, BY USING A SOFTWARE INTERFACE, SERIOUS GAME TYPE FOR LAPTOP AND TABLET

Abstract

In the paper there is presented an interactive software interface that was designed, programmed, realized and tested in our research activities. It is presented as a serious game, with application for laptop and tablet, to be very attractive for children having visual impairments, aimed for testing and training the visual function in terms of cognitive reaction. The interface it is going to be as attractive as possible for children, which would trigger interest in solving some tests as interesting games. In this way, via software interface implementation, as different game stages, with progressive difficulty degrees, each tested (or trained) child will be stimulated to gather a high score as possible, he could be rewarded according to it. The software interface aims, first of all, to test the visual function for children, by designing images at different levels of contrast, the images being familiar to the children. Giving scores for each stage of testing is automatically determined (running the interface), depending on the subject's response to image perception. For a more proper and complete testing, the interface is presented as three main stages in terms of game, namely for white, for yellow and for green background, these being considered pleasant, relaxing colors for the eye. Until now, the interface (as serious game) was used in case of three children aged between 6 and 9 years, with different visual problems (myopia, squint and amblyopia). It has been found that the software interface, as serious stimulating game, presented a high interest for all three children, and, in case of two of them, the daily resumption of the test (as training for visual function rehabilitation) for two weeks, has resulted in a slight improvement in the visual function. As a result, as further research activities, we intend to test the software interface on several children with sight impairments and, besides, there it is proposed also its subsequent use for activities type visual screening in schools and kindergartens.