Supporting Your Child With Disabilities With Digital Learning Games

When my son was in elementary school, my wife and I were unsure about our son playing video games. But when we noticed his interest in a popular math game, we gave it a try. Fast forward to today. Our son just aced his first two college calculus courses.

I have no definitive evidence to link a math game to his current college success. But there is a growing body of research which suggests a strong connection:

• Research found Cyberchase has a positive impact on math learning and attitudes towards math;
• A study of Odd Squad shows first graders boosted their knowledge of numbers and operations and algebraic thinking;
• Research on Peg + Cat found preschool children show improvement in key math skills.

When your child has a disability though, using digital learning games may have challenges. What if they struggle to hear the dialogue or see the screen? What if they struggle to play the game due to issues with fine motor skills? What if your child has a reading disability like dyslexia? Or a developmental disorder like autism?

PBS KIDS digital games have something for everyone. Five games from the long-running series, "Cyberchase" — Railway Hero, Echo Explorers, Duck Dash, Cyber Fashion Challenge, and Cyber Sound Quest — are designed to be accessible to children of nearly all abilities. Here's how to help your child have a positive learning experience while playing. (Also available in Spanish.)

Each of these games include extensive settings menus that allow children to personalize their game experience. This is helpful if your child has special needs, but can help make play a more enjoyable experience for any child. Children can adjust:

• How different parts of the game appear or sound, and turn on audio descriptions or closed captions.
• The game difficulty. Children who struggle with completing a level before the battery or time runs out can adjust their settings to unlimited chances (in Echo Explorers) or untimed play (in Railway Hero). Some games (Duck Dash, Cyber Fashion Challenge, and Cyber Sound Quest), allow children to slow down the game or adjust the starting challenge level. They also have an “adaptive” setting, which makes the game easier or more challenging to match the skill of the player.
• How to play. Children who struggle to tap, swipe, or use a mouse can play with keyboard controls. When using a touchscreen device, children can simply tap or swipe to play the game.

Echo Explorers, Duck Dash, Cyber Fashion Challenge, and Cyber Sound Quest also have a “dwell activation” setting for children with severe motor impairments who use eye gaze or head tracking technology to control their computer. (For details on using the accessibility settings, see the Duck Dash Setup Guide, Echo Explorers Setup Guide and Cyber Fashion Challenge Setup Guide.)

Collaborative play can be a fun way for kids to learn together. Kids can play these games together by alternating levels or taking turns replaying the same level. And since all of these games are accessible, children with and without disabilities can play the games together. So, a sighted sister can play with her blind brother and both can enjoy the game. Each player can change the settings to suit their needs.

If your child gets frustrated when something isn’t working the way they think it should, check out the tutorials! Encourage them to pay attention to the opening intro sections the first time they play.

Here are more ideas for your child to learn math while playing these games:

In Cyber Sound Quest:

• Show your child measuring tools in the real world that are similar to the sound meters in the game, such as thermometers and fuel gauges. Point out how the pointer or level tells you information. Consider creating a chart for your child to record the temperature every day as a fun way to practice reading a thermometer.
• Help your child figure out multiple ways to combine two numbers to add up to 10. Use 10 small objects (10 paper clips, 10 small pieces of candy, etc.) and have your child make two piles. Count the number in each pile and then count the total number. Use math language to show them that adding the two piles together makes 10. For example, if they divide the pile into 3 and 7, ask them to count each pile and then count all of them. Point to each pile and say "3 plus 7 equals 10." See how many different ways they can make two piles that add up to 10.

In Cyber Fashion Challenge:

• Try creating patterns. In this game, children must select from various used articles of clothing for upcycling into new items. Children are first presented with a variety of items in a wide range of colors, which are later cut into geometric figures. Encourage your child to be creative about using repeating patterns of different shapes and different colors. Patterns are an important concept in science which are found in nature and are commonly used in clothes designs as well.
• Extend the understanding of terminology. As your child assembles the new clothes from geometric cut-outs of old garments, each level of the game has children select only from particular geometric figures. The easy levels begin with basic concepts such as triangles and squares. However, your child may not know the terminology for particular types of triangles, like a right triangle or an isosceles triangle, so this is an opportunity for your child to learn more about these terms. More advanced levels describe many figures by the number of sides and angles, challenging your child to think about the types of geometric figures that meet these criteria. This will encourage your child’s observation and analytic skills as well

In Duck Dash:

• Try out ranking. As your child gets further into a level, encourage your child to try making multiple duck swaps each time so that the ducks are sorted by energy level with the highest in the lead, and the ducks with the lowest energy in the rear of the flock. This will help your child with making multiple number comparisons, which is essential to understanding how to rank numeric values.
• Use math to help sort out the pros and cons. Help your child decide the best pond for the ducks to visit during the rest stop sequence by creating a number sentence. Start with adding up the number of all food items (pros) and the number of all problem items (cons), and then subtract the total cons from the total pros. Have your child write it down like an equation with a numeric result at the end. After doing this for both ponds, your child will see there is a numeric difference that can be used to decide which pond is best for the flock to rest. This exercise will help you child develop whole number addition and subtraction skills, and your child will also begin to understand how we use math to make comparisons.

In Echo Explorers:

• Imagine a real cave exploration! Children can pretend they are exploring a real cave in the dark by simply using a computer with a keyboard. When you start the game, make sure to turn on the audio description in the settings. For sighted children, turn off or cover the screen. Then have your child play the game using the arrow, tab, and enter keys. Playing Echo Explorers this way reinforces your child’s problem-solving skills, early understanding of coordinate grids, and whole number addition and subtraction skills. Sighted children can also begin to understand how someone who is blind can use a computer to play video games.
• Try different location strategies. Challenge your child to come up with different strategies for finding all the parts in the fewest moves. This is a great way to build problem-solving skills. Another fun way to play the game is to send pings in only one direction on each level, perhaps only north on level one, only east on the next level, and so on until they have gone all the way around the compass. This hones problem-solving skills and also reinforces knowledge of the cardinal directions and basic map skills.

In Railway Hero:

• Add it up differently. Railway Hero reinforces addition skills. The first few levels are fairly easy, but it isn’t long before kids may be presented with multiple correct ways of repairing a gap of missing track pieces. Encourage higher-level math thinking by prompting your child to find different possible combinations of track lengths to fill a gap. For instance, if there is a gap of five spaces, encourage your child to think of all available combinations that will work to repair it, like two tracks plus three or one track plus four.
• Explore adding strategies. Help your child discover a variety of adding strategies to come up with the correct lengths. The doubling strategy works well in lower levels of the game. If the gap length is eight, help your child look for two track pieces of four. Another adding strategy is “plus one.” If a length of seven is needed, have your child think of one less than seven and see if they can find a length of six and a length of one. A strategy for filling larger gaps might be to look for the largest available length and figure out what smaller length can go with it to get the desired number. Encourage your child to think out loud and try different approaches.

Math is all about the way we understand the world, and anyone can be good at it. Help your child learn the love of math by watching episodes and playing more games on the Cyberchase website!