Serious Games, Robotics, and Digital-Therapeutics in Neurodevelopmental Disorders

Neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) may imply a broad range of difficulties in the areas of language and communication, attention, hyperactivity, executive function, emotion, intellectual functioning, social interaction, visual-motor processing, and motor coordination. In turn, these difficulties may have important second-order impacts on academic learning and quality of life of children and caregivers. Recent advances in technological development offer the possibility to design non-pharmacological digital-therapeutics or assistive technologies as training tools to reinforce precise areas of interest. Serious games combine the entertaining and motivating aspects of video games with specific educational agenda designed to improve learning of target skills. Similarly, educational robotics aims at understanding how interacting with a robotic agent can foster and support learning processes. Moreover, virtual agents also represent opportunities to improve conversational and social skills, serving as social partners. Integrating digital solutions in clinical and educational practice offers several advantages in terms of precision, scalability, and timely accessibility. Nonetheless, it also introduces potential risks that need to be carefully taken into account, evaluated, and compensated.

This Research Topic aims at improving the scientific understanding, feasibility, applicability, efficacy, effectiveness, and specific risks to the use of serious games, robotics, and virtual agents with NDD children from a multidisciplinary perspective. The areas of interest span from therapeutic settings (e.g., robot-assisted therapy for autism) to the more broad utilization of technologies in everyday and educational environments (e.g., serious games to reinforce appropriate skills of children with dyslexia/dysgraphia/dyscalculia/dyspraxia or virtual agents to practice social communication skills). Areas of particular relevance include the development of social skills, emotion recognition and regulation, inhibitory control, motor coordination, executive functions, and learning domains. Research advances include (but are not limited to) evaluating the longitudinal effect of digital solutions in clinical practice compared to clinical interventions. Additionally, evaluating digital solutions outside clinical contexts from a naturalistic perspective is also an area of primary interest, for example in school and home environments. Design and feasibility aspects including applicability, demand, acceptability, implementation, adaptation, integration, and practicality are of great value. Finally, studies about safety, risks, and potential adverse or unintended effects are pivotal to develop solutions for health promotion.

This Research Topic welcomes contributions exploring the use of serious games,robotics, and virtual agents for children with NDD across therapeutic, educational, and everyday settings. Key themes include their impact on cognitive, motor, emotional, social skill development and learning, as well as feasibility, usability, ethical considerations, and potential drawbacks. Submissions may focus on efficacy, real-world implementation, comparative analyses with traditional methods, long-term outcomes, and skill maintenance. Additionally, research on personalization, adaptation, and accessibility of digital solutions is encouraged. Moreover, submissions may also focus on the perspective of clinicians and other providers employing digital technologies in their settings.
We invite original research articles, systematic reviews, meta-analyses, case studies, and perspective or opinion pieces that contribute to a deeper understanding of the benefits, limitations, and future directions of these technologies in neurodevelopmental support. Studies addressing safety, risks, and unintended consequences are particularly welcome to foster awareness and responsible innovation in this field.

Topic Editor David Cohen participates in two startup projects in the field of health technology: he holds equity of School Rebound SA (2021 – present) and holds stock warrants of Bmotion Technologies (2023 – present). The other Topic Editors declare no competing interests with regards to the Research Topic theme.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Case Report
• Classification
• Clinical Trial
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Study Protocol
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: digital therapeutics, educational robotics, NDDs, serious games, rehabilitation technologies, virtual agents, Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Therapies

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.