Skip to main content

Table 3 Performance changes of GOLIAH trained children through sessions for all JA and imitation games

From: GOLIAH (Gaming Open Library for Intervention in Autism at Home): a 6-month single blind matched controlled exploratory study

Game type (variable, n = events)

N

Time effect

Difficulty level effect

Number of items effect

Imitation games

Imitate free drawing (Imitation score per drawing—n = 562)

13

Imitation score increases with session (β = 0.02, p = 0.036)*

NA

NA

Imitate step by step drawing (Imitation score per drawing—n = 198)

13

No effect (β = 0.13, p = 0.089)*

NA

Imitation score increases with the number of steps (β = 0.27, p = 0.047)*

Imitate speech (Imitation score per words or sentences—n = 315)

13

No effect (β = 0.014, p = 0.61)*

No effect (β = −0.21, p = 0.328)*

No effect (β = −0.029, p = 0.72)*

Imitate sounds (Imitation score per sounds—n = 452)

13

Imitation score increases with session (β = 0.037, p = 0.019)*

Imitation score decreases when increasing severity (β = −0.31, p = 0.014)*

No effect (β = 0.05, p = 0.41)*

Imitate actions (Imitation score per actions—n = 161)

13

Imitation score increases with session (β = 0.11, p = 0.039)*

No effect (β = 0.089, p = 0.86)*

No effect (β = −0.43, p = 0.18)*

Imitate actions and build (Imitation score per contruction—n = 227)

13

Imitation score increases with session (β = 0.149, p < 0.001)*

No effect (β = 0.266, p = 0.47)*

Imitation score decreases with the number of cubes (β = −0.1′, p = 0.0176)*

Guess the instrument

13

Bug

Bug

Bug

Joint attention games

Follow the therapist’s pointing (RT for good answers—n = 681)

13

RT decreases with sessions (β = −0.0045, p = 0.048)**

No effect (β = −0.014, p = 0.247)**

No effect (β = 0.0057, p = 0.428)**

Cooperative drawing—connect dots (RT—n = 449)

13

RT decreases with sessions (β = −0.024, p = 0.045)**

NA

No effect (β = 0.0035, p = 0.51)**

Bake a recipe (TCT—n = 748)

14

RT decreases with sessions (β = −0.021, p < 0.001)**

NA

NA

Receptive communication (RT for good answers—n = 225)

14

No effect (β = −0.002, p = 0.776)**

RT is faster in easy versus difficult condition ( = −0.17, p = 0.021)**

NA

  1. N number of children exposed to the game during at least 2 sessions (as opposed to n = events that corresponds to the number of tasks with a given score included in the statistical regression), RT reaction time (to perform the task); TCT time to complete the task, NA not appropriate
  2. * Ordinal mixed models; ** Linear mixed models with log transformation