University of Kentucky

Bloppy Care: A Not-Very-Serious Game Focused on Inclusion and Representation for Children with Physical Disabilities

Bloppy Care: A Not-Very-Serious Game Focused on Inclusion and Representation for Children with Physical Disabilities Kristin A Bartlett Apirada Chetawatee Engineering and Computing Education Product Design University of Cincinnati University of Kentucky Cincinnati, Ohio, USA Lexington, Kentucky, USA Product Design ...

• Most games for children with disabilities focus on therapy or rehabilitation, failing to address the need for representation that normalizes disability in a non-clinical context.
• The Bloppy Care prototype aims to reduce stigma by neutrally incorporating medical devices like feeding pumps, catheters, and walkers into gameplay, rather than treating them as objects for medical intervention.
• Initial testing with 20 children revealed that while 70% had seen wheelchairs in media, none reported seeing other common medical devices like G-tubes or inhalers, highlighting a significant gap in representation.