LudoMi and its multisensory approach are grounded on the theories of “Embodied Cognition and sensory integration” [1] that emphasizes the formative role of embodiment in the development of cognitive skills. Consequently, it is important to involve children from an early age in activities that stimulate all the senses.

In order to improve the ability to interpret and integrate stimuli correctly, experiences involving vestibular, proprioceptive and tactile systems are important for children with cognitive disabilities (in which sensory skills are often compromised) [2][3][4].

For this purpose, a lot of abroad schools and few Italian centre use the “Multisensory Rooms” usually based on a commercial “product” called “Snoezelen” [5] [6] which offers a variety of objects, toys, furniture of various shapes and materials. However, these elements are not integrated each other, they are not interactive (they do not follow “action → stimulus” logic), they are not digitally controllable, and the stimuli are not extendable or customizable by the caregiver. Therefore, the experiences in the “Snoezelen” are repetitive, not suitable for group activities, and difficult to manage for the caregivers.

The Magic Rooms created by LudoMi overcome these limitations and use advanced digital technologies to transform a usual game room into a “smart” space that can be programmed and controlled in an interactive way, where children are exposed to a variety of stimuli: visual (video projections or video animations, lights, soap bubbles), sound, tactile and olfactory. The stimuli are activated performing gestures and movements in the space or manipulating physical materials such as toys, objects, fabrics. Multisensory stimuli, digital content, and activities are designed following Participatory Design methods [7], considering children and their caregivers as the core of the design process and the creation of technological solutions.

Compared to traditional multi-sensory rooms like Snoezelen, the playful-educational experiences in the Magic Room have greater potential for children with cognitive disabilities because they are more:

• customizable [8][9][10]; through a simple tablet interface, the caregiver can remotely control the devices and configure each experience based on needs of a single child or group. It is possible to modify the intensity, duration and orchestration of the stimuli and action → stimulus sequences, and add new audio-visual contents.
• stimulating and engaging, for two main reasons: i)interactive technologies are extremely attractive for children (especially those with cognitive disabilities [11] [12]); ii) technologies based on tactile and body interaction have been shown to promote the development of the relationship between adult and child and among children.[13] [14] [15].

TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATION

The technology underlying the Magic Room developed in LudoMi is an innovative “cyberphysical system” thanks to its technical and functional characteristics, portability and scalability, and for the richness, variety and adaptability of the playful-educational experiences offered. In the current state of the art there are some prototypes of interactive multisensory systems designed for disability, e.g. SensoryPaint [12] and MEDIATE [16]. None of these research products offers the flexibility and the technological power of the Magic Room, nor does it offer a comparable variety of sensory stimuli, smart objects, activities for children and a similar digital control and personalization potential. LudoMi capitalizes on the results of a previous European project (P3S [17] [18] and video) during which a hardware and software platform was prototyped and tested for the control of a limited set of sensors and actuators. LudoMi faces a more ambitious technical-scientific challenge: the Magic Room requires to manage a much wider and variegated network of sensors and actuators, to create a great variety of new objects and digitally enriched and interactive materials, to integrate customization functionalities.

VALIDATION

LudoMi’s innovation is also in its experimentation, which is unique in terms of complexity and size. Empirical validations of interactive technology for people with disabilities are very difficult, the total number of participants in existing empirical studies varies between 3 and 20.
LudoMi installed two Magic Rooms in two primary schools in Cornaredo (MI) and is conducting a experimentation, which began in March 2019, which will last 6 months and will involve over 800 children, 58 teachers, and 51 classes. Experimentation uses rigorous methods, developed in psychology, pedagogy, linguistics, and neuroscience, to design the study, define the execution protocols and measure the benefits in terms of well-being, learning, development of autonomy in children and of “general satisfaction” of all the users involved (pupils, educators, and parents).

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REFERENCES

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4. American Psychiatric Association, 2013. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (DSM-5®). American Psychiatric Pub.
5. Lancioni, G.E., Cuvo, A.J. and Òreilly, M.F., 2002. Snoezelen: an overview of research with people with developmental disabilities and dementia. Disability and rehabilitation, 24(4), pp.175-184.
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15. Arquilla V.; Simonelli G.; Genco D.; Guaricci F. (2016), New perspectives for an open and peer educational model in design field: the cometa project, INTED 2016, IATED, Valencia
16. Parés, N., Carreras, A., Durany, J., Ferrer, J., Freixa, P., Gómez, D., Kruglanski, O., Parés, R., Ribas, J.I., Soler, M. and Sanjurjo, À., 2004. MEDIATE: An interactive multisensory environment for children with severe autism and no verbal communication. In Proc. of the Third International Workshop on Virtual Rehabilitation.
17. Agosta, G., Borghese, L., Brandolese, C., Clasadonte, F., Fornaciari, W., Garzotto, F., Gelsomini, M., Grotto, M., Frà, C., Noferi, D. and Valla, M., 2015, August. Playful Supervised Smart Spaces (P3S) – A Framework for Designing, Implementing and Deploying Multisensory Play Experiences for Children with Special Needs. In Digital System Design (DSD), 2015 Euromicro Conference on (pp. 158-164). IEEE.
18. Garzotto, F., & Gelsomini, M. (2018). Magic Room: A Smart Space for Children with Neurodevelopmental Disorder. IEEE Pervasive Computing, 17(1), 38-48.

M. Gelsomini, G. Cosentino, M. Spitale, M. Gianotti, F. Riccardi, B. Bonadies, D. Fisicaro, A. Piselli, E. Beccaluva, G. Leonardi, L. Di Terlizzi, M. Zinzone, S. Alberti, C. Rebourg, M. Carulli, F. Garzotto, V. Arquilla, M. Bisson, B. Del Curto, M. Bordegoni. Magika, a Multisensory Environment for Play, Education and Inclusion. 2019. In Proceedings of the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Extended Abstracts. May 4-9, 2019, Glasgow, Scotland UK.

G. Cosentino, G. Leonardi, M. Gelsomini, M. Spitale, M. Gianotti, F. Garzotto, V. Arquilla. 2019. GENIEL: an auto-generative intelligent interface to empower learning in a multi-sensory environment. 2019. In Proceedings of the ACM IUI International Conference on Intelligent User Interfaces: Companion. 2019, Los Angeles, USA.