Engaging children with neurodevelopmental disorder through multisensory interactive experiences in a smart space

Our research explores the potential of IoT (Internet of Things) for children with Neurodevelopmental Disorder (NDD), such as Intellectual Disability, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Down Syndrome, Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. The paper describes an IoT empowered physical space called “Magic Room” that supports interaction with “smart” objects and the entire space through body motion and objet manipulation, provides different combination of stimuli. The Magic Room has been designed in collaboration with NDD experts from a local care centre and and, providing an open set of multimodal multisensory activities for children with NDD that stimulate the visual, aural, tactile, olfactory and motor system, may pave the ground towards new forms of intervention for this target group. The technology beneath the Magic Room is an extensible multi-layered software and hardware platform to connect and manage different devices. Activities executed into this Multisensory Environment (MSE) are completely customizable for each child by the therapist.