Kinect-based Music Application for Children with Severe Physical Disabilities : Kinect-based Music Application for Children with Severe Physical Disabilities

Abstract: Based on initial interviews with music teachers at Årstra SpecialSchool, Uppsala, it was found that each child in a music playing session has different preferences of type and sound of a musical instrument. However, most of them have combined cognitive and physical impairments, preventing them from playing the instrument that theymight like.Starting from this idea, we developed a music application using virtual instruments, so that various types of instruments and sound can be used during a single music playing session. As an input device, we used aKinect sensor developed by Microsoft, i.e., a camera based sensor thatdetects human gestures. Our application used this Kinect sensor capability to allow users to control and play the sound by just movingtheir arms in the air. Our study has shown promising results of this applicatio, such as the positive response from the participant towards the application and the ability to change the sound of an instrument to match the participant's preference easily. However there are still some things to consider before releasing it as a consumer product, for instance bettercalibration and accuracy.