By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    Health
    Healthcare organizations are operating on slimmer profit margins than ever. One report in August showed that they are even lower than the beginning of the…
    Show More
    Top News
    improving patient experience
    6 Ways to Improve Patient Satisfaction Within Hospitals
    December 1, 2021
    degree for healthcare job
    What Are The Health Benefits Of Having A Degree?
    March 9, 2022
    custom software development is changing healthcare
    Digital Customer Journey Mapping and its Importance for Healthcare
    July 21, 2022
    Latest News
    Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
    May 16, 2025
    Learn how to Renew your Medical Card in West Virginia
    May 16, 2025
    Choosing the Right Supplement Manufacturer for Your Brand
    May 1, 2025
    Engineering Temporary Hospitals for Extreme Weather
    April 24, 2025
  • Policy and Law
    • Global Healthcare
    • Medical Ethics
    Policy and Law
    Get the latest updates about Insurance policies and Laws in the Healthcare industry for different geographical locations.
    Show More
    Top News
    Can Thinking Younger Make You Live Longer?
    April 20, 2011
    Image
    Obesity’s Outlook Unchanged
    June 13, 2011
    When It’s An Emergency Elderly Not Treated As Well in Hospitals
    July 16, 2011
    Latest News
    Building Smarter Care Teams: Aligning Roles, Structure, and Clinical Expertise
    May 18, 2025
    The Critical Role of Healthcare in Personal Injury Recovery: A Comprehensive Guide for Victims
    May 14, 2025
    The Backbone of Successful Trials: Clinical Data Management
    April 28, 2025
    Advancing Your Healthcare Career through Education and Specialization
    April 16, 2025
  • Medical Innovations
  • News
  • Wellness
  • Tech
Search
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: Could a Video Game Help Autistic Children?
Share
Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Health Works Collective > Technology > Medical Innovations > Could a Video Game Help Autistic Children?
Medical InnovationsSpecialtiesTechnology

Could a Video Game Help Autistic Children?

Deanna Pogorelc
Last updated: August 28, 2013 8:00 am
Deanna Pogorelc
Share
5 Min Read
SHARE

Originally published on MedCityNews.com.

That gray feline avatar — that’s Shadow Cat. He’s a virtual comic book character that an early-stage Cleveland startup is turning into a tool to improve cognitive training, performance data collection and research for autism spectrum disorders.

More Read

5 Tips To Recover After A Personal Injury
The Obesity-Cancer Connection
Top 6 Emerging Medical Technologies Of The Year
Drug Dispensing Robot at Hospital Pharmacy
Why Are Dental Fillings So Important?

Originally published on MedCityNews.com.

That gray feline avatar — that’s Shadow Cat. He’s a virtual comic book character that an early-stage Cleveland startup is turning into a tool to improve cognitive training, performance data collection and research for autism spectrum disorders.

Tamar Medina and a pair of co-founders started J-LYNN Entertainment in 2011 to commercialize what they call video game comic books. Like a choose-your-own-adventure book, the idea of the game is that the user controls a character in a video game that’s structured in frames, like a comic book. The player guides the character through a series of tasks and decisions, where each outcome or decision changes the next step of the game, and kids collect achievement points along the way.

Originally, the idea was to create the games as an educational and entertainment product. But when Medina and his partners began attending comic book conventions to test their audience, they were approached by parents and teachers who mentioned that the video game comics would be great for children with autism and ADHD.

Autism spectrum disorders are characterized by communication and social-interaction difficulties, so the interactive nature of the game would help kids develop social and decision-making skills, they said. “You can tell what’s going on in the comic without actually reading it, so it allows kids to associate words with pictures and actions,” Medina explained.

The team took the idea back to Cleveland, where Medina said not many people are investing in entertainment or media, and began exploring the idea of a product more geared toward the health market — a more favorable market among local investors.  Simultaneously, they heard about an NIH grant that fit almost exactly with the new idea.

Researchers have actually been studying the potential of computer-based programs as an intervention for children with special needs for decades, and sites like Whiz Kid Games, Aven’s Corner and FaceSay host free computer games designed for them. That, however, comes against a backdrop of research suggesting that children with an autism spectrum disorder are more likely to become addicted to games than children without disabilities.

So Medina began to send his pitch for comic book video games to autism researchers across the country. Over the course of a few months, he recruited an advisory board that includes Dr. Thomas Frazier, director of the Center for Autism at Cleveland Clinic; Howard Shane at Boston Children’s Hospital; Kevin Kearns at SUNY Fredonia and Kate Vanderplough, founder of Autism Services for Kids in Cleveland. They are each lending their expertise to various components of the game, including game mechanics, reading comprehension, social skills and visual communications.

Medina imagines the game eventually being used not only as a way to entertain and teach kids but as a way for parents and therapists to monitor kids’ conditions. Developers are building out a back-end data component for parents and therapists to track a child’s performance. “If there’s one panel he spends four minutes on instead of 30 seconds one, they might be able to deduce certain things based on whether it was a reading comprehension panel, or a complicated subject matter or whether certain images triggered an emotional reaction,” Medina said.

To get the product into the hands of the right people, and to get them to pay for it, Medina said the team is leaning toward targeting both consumers and clinics with a prescription-based model, where providers would subscribe to a premium product to manage the data component of it.

“Since we’re putting a new approach to software, we need scientific data and testing,” Medina said. For now, the team is trying to get that through grants. Once early testing is complete, they’ll look for investors.

“The great thing about this is it could be expanded beyond autism,” Medina said. “I’m starting to believe that the product is better for autism than for the original entertainment we made it for, but it’s also scalable in entertainment.”

TAGGED:autismhealth start-ups!
Share This Article
Facebook Copy Link Print
Share

Stay Connected

1.5kFollowersLike
4.5kFollowersFollow
2.8kFollowersPin
136kSubscribersSubscribe

Latest News

Clinical Expertise
Building Smarter Care Teams: Aligning Roles, Structure, and Clinical Expertise
Health care
May 18, 2025
Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
Grounded Healing: A Natural Ally for Sustainable Healthcare Systems
Health
May 15, 2025
Learn how to Renew your Medical Card in West Virginia
Learn how to Renew your Medical Card in West Virginia
Health
May 15, 2025
Dr. Klaus Rentrop Shares Acute Myocardial Infarction heart treatment
Dr. Klaus Rentrop Shares Acute Myocardial Infarction
Cardiology
May 13, 2025

You Might also Like

Guidelines for Using Wi-Fi for Medical Devices

January 16, 2014

Cook Medical Introduces Endoscope With an HD Camera Attached- Portable Imaging System for Urologists

August 25, 2011
Medical InnovationsSpecialtiesTechnology

New Advances Improve Breast Cancer Diagnosis And Treatment

February 1, 2018
Specialties

Weight Loss and Exercise Fail to Prevent Heart Attacks and Strokes? A Skeptic Scoffs

October 22, 2012
Subscribe
Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!
Follow US
© 2008-2025 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address
Password

Lost your password?