ADDventurous Rhythmical Planet: A 3D Rhythm-based Serious Game for Social Skills Development of Children with ADHD Marina Giannaraki 1 , Nektarios Moumoutzis 1 , John Papatzanis 2 , Elias Kourkoutas 3 , and Katerina Mania 1 1 Laboratory of Distributed Multimedia Information Systems and Applications, School of Electrical & Computer Engineering, Technical University of Crete, Chania, Greece mgiannaraki@isc.tuc.gr, nektar@ced.tuc.gr, k.mania@ced.tuc.gr 2 Professional musician jpapatzanis@yahoo.gr 3 Department of Primary Education, University of Crete, Rethymnon, Greece hkourk@edc.uoc.gr Abstract. Children diagnosed with ADHD are often at a disadvantage regarding their social interactions at school and at play due to their symptomatic inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity. That may lead to isolation, low self-esteem and even depression. Music is shown to sig- nificantly help children maintain focused attention as well as offer a timed structure around their actions, involving melody and tempo. Music can also aid the development of cognitive ability, self-confidence and pro- mote limits and rules. Through music, children can learn how to control their impulsivity, learn to pause and wait for their turn and apply such social skills to their every-day life. This paper presents a multimodal 3D serious game named ”ADDventurous Rhythmical Planet”. Its goal is to exploit the benefits of music and rhythm helping children diagnosed with ADHD to overcome their psychosocial challenges, unlike currently available games offering interaction based on only the visual modality. Keywords: ADHD, social skills, music therapy, rhythm, psychosocial functioning, serious game 1 Introduction This paper presents a 3D game for children diagnosed with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) of 8-11 years old, aiming to improve their social collaborative skills using rhythm and music. ADHD is a chronic neurobiological disorder which affects the brain structurally and chemically as well as the ways in which various parts of the brain communicate with one another. It is a clus- ter of difficulties that involve the self-management system of the brain. People with ADHD struggle to concentrate on specific actions as well as get organized, regulate emotions and impulses and generally, regulate and use their working memory.