Improving Social Cognition for Adults With ASD by the Serious Game JeStiMulE Versus Controls

Summary

The serious game "JeStiMulE" (Educational Game for Multisensory Stimulation of Children with developmental disorders), developed by the Autism Resources Center of Nice, was created to teach social cognition including emotion recognition in context, for children and adolescents with autism. In a previous study, JeStiMulE has demonstrated efficacy in a population of young people aged 6-17 years old with high and low levels of autism.

According to the recommendations of the 2011 HAS, disorders of social interactions are the most persistent troubles of the autistic triad in life.

It seems essential to us to be able to offer young adults with autism, rehabilitation methods adapted to their trouble, and to observe whether JeStiMulE could be one of them.

This study researches the effectiveness of the serious game JeStiMulE in the improvement social cognition for adults with autism versus controls.

The main goal is:

\- Comparing the improvement in social cognition among adults with autism using the serious game JeStiMulE or not.

Two groups will be formed: a first one of fifteen adults with a diagnosis of autism objectified, this group will use JeStiMulE and will be compared to a control group of adults with autism, using another video game, not aimed to improve social cognition.

The objective of JeStiMulE players will be ending the game after a learning period and two playing periods (with emotional words and idioms, including three modules each). The groups will be matched with their nonverbal IQ through Raven matrices and visual memory tasks (WAIS).

The control group will also be stimulated through a video game, not specialized in improving social cognition.

The primary outcome will be assessed by the emotion recognition at the FEEST of Ekman test: by the number of emotions recognized on faces, compared to the number of emotion presented through this test.

The secondary outcomes will be:

* The rest of social cognition improvement by several tests (the theory of mind with the score of the Tom-15, the intention with the score Sarfati cartoons, empathy with a self-administered questionnaire: EQ / AQ).
* The impact on the quality of life, verbal fluency of emotional words, and the feedback from JeStiMulE players will also be seen as a secondary outcome.

Conditions

• Autistic Disorder

Interventions

OTHER

serious game JeStiMulE

The objective of JeStiMulE players will be ending the game after a learning period and two playing periods (with emotional words and idioms, which include three modules each). The session ends when the module is completed, which is approximately one hour per module, or 6 sessions of play.

OTHER

control video game

The patients will play 6 sessions of one hour with the control video game

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Fondation Lenval

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Sylvie SERRET, MD · Fondation Lenval

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

40 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2015-09-22

Primary Completion

2016-09-20

Completion

2017-09-20

Countries

• France

Study Locations