Interactive storytelling environments: Coping with cardiac illness at Boston's Children's Hospital

This paper describes exploration of uses of a computational storytelling environment on the Cardiology Unit of the Children's Hospital in Boston during the summer of 1997. Young cardiac patients ranging from age 7 to 16 used the SAGE environment to tell personal stories and create interactive characters, as a way of coping with cardiac illness, hospitalizations, and invasive medical procedures. This pilot study is part of a larger collaborative effort between Children's Hospital and MERL - A Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratory to develop a web-based application, the Experience Journal, to assist patients and their families in dealing with serious medical illness. The focus of the paper is on young patients' uses of SAGE, on SAGE's affordances in the context of the hospital, and on design recommendations for the development of future computational play kits. Preliminary analysis of children's stories indicates that children used different modes of interaction - direct, mediated, and differed - depending upon what personae the narrator chooses to take on. These modes seem to vary with the mindset and health condition of the child.