Using digital game as clinical screening test to detect color deficiency in young children

Digital games as education tools for children have been studied in the past. However, the use of digital games in clinical environments such as for children's healthcare is still rare in the research community. This paper reports on the development of a digital tablet game called "Dodo's catching adventure" which examines the use of games in visual colordeficiency screening for young children. A user study was conducted at a National Eye Centre. Results of the study show that the digital game demonstrates sensitivity and specificity on RedGreen color deficiency detection, and is comparable to the two gold standards in color deficiency tests, namely the Ishihara and Farnsworth D15. Furthermore, children found the game to be more enjoyable than the Ishihara test. This provides evidence for the feasibility of using such games as diagnosis tools for early childhood health conditions.