Fun to develop embodied skill: how games help the blind to understand pointing

We discuss how gaming can be used as a training strategy for students who are blind or visually impaired (SBVI) to develop embodied skill in use of haptic assistive technology. The technology takes the form of a haptic glove that is designed to give SBVI access to the pointing behavior of teachers in mathematics/science instruction that is performed in conjunction with speech and the use of instructional graphics. Our initial studies show that significant 'embodied skill' was required to afford fluent multimodal communication between the instructor and student. We developed a gaming strategy, employing flow theory to enhance the fun and engagement of the SBVI to promote extensive perceptual training. Our results showed significant improvement and interaction gains as the game-play progressed over multiple sessions. Results also indicate that skills developed through game play were persistent, and transferable to complex multimodal situated discourse conditions.