Designing Wiimprovisation for Mediation in Group Music Therapy with Children Suffering from Behavioral Disorders

Samuel Benveniste (1) , Pierre Jouvelot (1) , Edith Lecourt (2) , Renaud Michel (2)

1 CRI - Centre de Recherche en Informatique
2 IEP

We present qualitative experimental evidence that the "Wiimprovisation" process of using Nintendo Wiimotes as virtual instruments linked to a musical sound system within the framework of Group Music Therapy sessions can provide effective psychodynamic mediation for patients. We designed and implemented specific modalities for movement-based sound control and tested our tool in two clinical settings with children (age 7 to 12) suffering from behavioral disorders. Our preliminary results show immediate acceptance of, long term motivation for and meaningful expression through our system by patients. Future work will focus on assessing the therapeutic potential of our platform's personalization features in a controlled experiment.

Mots clés: Mediation; video game; Wiimote; music therapy

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société; Musique, musicologie et arts de la scène

Samuel Benveniste, Pierre Jouvelot, Edith Lecourt, Renaud Michel. Designing Wiimprovisation for Mediation in Group Music Therapy with Children Suffering from Behavioral Disorders. the 8th International Conference on Interaction Design and Children, Jun 2009, Como, France. pp. 18-26, ⟨10.1145/1551788.1551793⟩. ⟨hal-00917975⟩