When most kids pick up a video game, it’s all about fun. For Dr. Elaine Biddiss, a senior scientist at Holland Bloorview, it’s also about possibility. Behind every controller, sensor, or playful onscreen challenge, she sees a way to help kids build motor skills, track progress, and feel included in spaces where they’ve too often been left out.
And while she’s not an avid gamer herself, when families and therapists kept asking for more engaging ways to keep therapy going at home, she saw the need.
“Kids love video games,” says Dr. Biddiss. “They’re motivating, they fit within family routines, and they create opportunities therapy alone often can’t.”
At Holland Bloorview, where excellence in care and research come together, Dr. Biddiss and her team create playful therapy games that turn exercise into adventure. One of those video games is Botley’s Bootle Blast. Using a sensor camera, Bootle Blast tells the story of Botley the robot — a painter turned inventor — who invents a replicator machine to create Bootle Bots that assist him with his paintings. The machine malfunctions, unleashing a swarm of mischievous Bootles across Sky Spark City. Tasked with restoring order, the player’s mission is to locate and collect the rogue Bootles!
Children, parents, and clinicians want video games that make hand and arm therapy possible, no matter where they are. Yet, there are few home-based video games for therapy. Since 2017, Bootle Blast has been played hundreds of times at Holland Bloorview and has spread to 24 clinics worldwide. Families in Costa Rica, where Dr. Biddiss and her team took the game (and where rehabilitation programs are harder to access), even tested it in their homes. Parents found it easy to build into everyday life. Something as simple as saying, “time to play your game” became a way to keep therapy going, taking the pressure off caregivers. For physiotherapists, the benefits also go beyond motivation.
“When kids are doing these activities at home, and not right in front of the therapist all the time, then it would be really good to also be able to have some indications of how their function and their abilities might be changing,” says Dr. Biddiss. Dr. Biddiss and her team are working on in-game tracking and data analytics to give a clearer picture of how kids are progressing.
But what feels like play is actually practice. Thanks to the gameplay, kids are working on shoulder rotations, wrist extensions, and fine motor skills without even realizing they’re doing therapy.
Dr. Biddiss’ passion for inclusion doesn’t end with motor skills. Music, she points out, is another area where kids with disabilities are often left out, even though the rewards are huge.
“Kids with disabilities have much lower rates in music education and learning to play musical instruments than typically developing kids,” she says. “But there are so many benefits to music and music making, from cognitive, motor, social, emotional, and even understanding culture.”
That’s why her team built a new game called Bootle Pop!, which makes music more accessible and features children with disabilities as musicians.
“[The game showcases] how everyone can participate in music in their own way, and that it’s a shared human experience,” says Dr. Biddiss.
All mainstream games should consider people of all abilities, Dr. Biddiss adds. At the heart of that vision are moments that happen quietly between siblings and families. Dr. Biddiss recalls a brother who helped their sibling with a disability while playing a video game together.
“Wouldn’t it be nice if siblings of different ages or abilities could play together in a way that was meaningful and fun for everyone?” says Dr. Biddiss.
That’s the future she’s working toward: a world where play belongs to everyone.