Making Adaptations to Play

We talked to her to show us some of the adaptations they have made and talk more about this work.

AbleGamers: Do you have used free video games?

Silvia Espinosa de los Monteros: Yes, these games are free, they can all be found on the Internet. Our work, initially, was an exhaustive search for these types of games, which on one hand were accessible and could be regular parameters such as speed, size of images, the difficulty level ... and so on., and on the other hand we could play for free.

We have a collection of pages in the computer center, something homemade, it has taken us long to find, some are even in other languages. It was the work of months and months, nobody gave us the job done.

AbleGamers: You say that the adaptations that you have created work with a virtual mouse that changes of position. Is the mouse virutal included in the games or do you use some external software?

Silvia Espinosa de los Monteros: The virtual mouse to which I refer is a simple program, a separate program to games, which helps us in our goal but also can have other uses, I can not tell you more about it because the person who helped us install it was the computer administrator in our center. What I can tell you is that games do not bring it included, we had to find an intermediate mechanism between the game and the button.

Ablegamers: How long have you been working on these adaptations?

Silvia Espinosa de los Monteros: Good question, I wanted to mention that I've only been working at the center 9 months, all this work, as I said before, it has taken years. Since not only involved the search pages and online games, also had to ask for help from different organizations to get the mouse and buttons that are not easily obtained because they cost so much money.

In addition, we conducted a user evaluation, developing a data sheet which gathers basic information about their needs and the types of support they need. My companion, Eva García-Berrio, was the therapist who initiated and started this whole process and who was interested that the kids could have a satisfactory alternative entertainment. A work that involves effort, persistence, and many headaches. I have taken the witness with pleasure and try to continue this activity in the center, as it would be a pity to fall into oblivion after so much work.

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sylvia.espinosadelosmonteros [at] gmail [dot] com