Many persuasive games allow players to role-play to better understand an individual’s or group’s point of view. No known studies have evaluated the ability of patients (non-game designers) to tell the story of their own disease/disorder through game design. Speech and language disorders, such as stuttering, often negatively impact an individual’s quality of life (Wolter, DiLollo, & Apel, 2006). One approach to help patients with this issue is narrative therapy, an approach that can benefit multiple patient populations including those who stutter (DiLollo, Neimeyer,&Manning, 2002; Wolter, DiLollo, & Apel, 2006). Narrative therapy encourages a patient to shift the focus of their life story (or personal narrative) from a disorder-centric narrative (where the disorder is in control) to a patient-empowered narrative (where the patient has control over
the disorder). While the goal of narrative therapy is to change the patient’s personal narrative over the course of therapy, both narratives (disorder-centric and patient-empowered) areavalid representation of the patient’s experience. Therefore, the ability to intertwine the two forms of the narrative one gives the creator (the patient) the ability to design an interactive experience for others (e.g., family, friends). Rather than simply telling others about how the disorder impacts his/her life or
asking others to read a static narrative about the impact, both of which are in the third person, the interactive narrative acts as a simulation, allowing others to experience consequences of choices the patient has to make from the patient’s point of view (first person). The act of creating a patient-generated interactive narrative (PGIN) may provide a unique way to increase a patient’s self-advocacy. Prior literature indicates that writing one’s own life story can be a method of self-advocacy (Meininger, 2006), but creating an interactive experience may further increase patient self-advocacy. We explore this idea through a study of individuals attending a summer camp for adolescents who stutter (AWS). The AWSs, with the help of graduate student clinicians (GSC), created and mixed earlier and later versions of the personal narrative using Twine
(twinery.org), an open-source software for designing narratives. We discuss the results of a group interview with summer camp attendees post-PGIN creation.
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