The University has been awarded £252,000 by the National Institute for Health Research to develop the E-PLAYS project, in collaboration with North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT).

E-PLAYS is a computer game aimed at 4-7 year-olds in mainstream schools, some of whom may have communication disorders such as autism. Children work in pairs and are guided by the game on how to communicate most effectively and collaborate to find ‘hidden treasure.’

A previous pilot study showed that children with social communication impairments improved on a communication test, on their use of questions and directives and on their enjoyment of social interaction. In addition, children without social communication impairments who participated also benefitted; afterwards showing a more positive attitude to collaborating with classmates with social communication impairments.

The team are now looking to run a study to establish whether they could recruit enough speech and language therapists and children from NHS trusts for a full-sized trial. Speech and language therapists from NELFT would train teaching assistants in mainstream primary schools to use E-PLAYS with their students in order to see the results.

Project lead Dr Suzanne Murphy from the University said: “Children with social communication impairments can struggle to communicate appropriately in social settings, which can have a profound effect on their social development, mental health, and education and can lead to bullying, isolation and school exclusion.

“E-PLAYS aims to encourage children to work together in a fun, engaging way and break down some of the barriers that children with communications disorders might face. The results of our pilot are very encouraging and moving forward we want to see if it would be feasible to roll E-PLAYS out to other NHS trusts and beyond into schools.”

Notes:

• E-PLAYS stands for Enhancing Pragmatic Language skills for Young children with Social communication Impairment.
• The E-PLAYS team are: Dr Suzanne Murphy (University of Bedfordshire), Prof Victoria Joffe (City, University of London), Prof David Messer (City, University of London), Dr Sarah Crafter (Open University), Prof David Torgerson (University of York), Dr Kerry Bell (University of York), Caroline Fairhurst (University of York) and Nita Madhani (NELFT), working in collaboration with NELFT.
• North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT) provides integrated community and mental health services for people living in the London boroughs of Barking & Dagenham, Havering, Redbridge and Waltham Forest and community health services for people living in the south west Essex areas of Basildon, Brentwood and Thurrock.