Abstract:

The article describes the final step of a pilot study run as part of a project designed by a multidisciplinary research team where robotics and virtual environments were used, in an integrated approach, with the aim of developing social skills in children with high functioning autism spectrum disorder (HFASD) (Pennazio, Fedeli, 2019). The piloting phase of the project involved a two-step path with the use of social stories as a core tool to be adapted to be applied both with the Robot NAO and a virtual robot in an online immersive 3D environment.

The first collected data and related analysis were focussed on target behaviours and prompts in the interactional scenario which involved the child and the robot NAO programmed to be the story teller and the primary interlocutor (Pennazio et al. 2020). The observations during the first piloting phase were of paramount importance to design the second intervention where the scenario should shift form a face-to-face physical environment to a virtual environment (Fedeli, Pennazio, 2020; 2021).

3D social virtual environments are widely used technologies in treatments of persons with disabilities (Mesa-Gresa et al. 2018) and as learning platform to train educators/teachers working with students with special needs (Nussli, Oh, 2015). Affordances of such environments includes the concept of embodiment (Fedeli, 2016) and flexibility (Parsons, Mitchell, 2002) and the opportunity to engage the user through different channels of communication.

The last phase of the piloting presents the results of the intervention in which a sequence of social stories, designed and recorded in a virtual environment, where used to engage the child in an interaction process with a 3D robot that replicated the scenario proposed in the first step.

References:
[1] Fedeli, L. (2016). Virtual body: Implications for identity, interaction and didactics. In S. Gregory, M. J.W. Lee, B. Dalgarno, & B. Tynan (Eds.), Learning in Virtual Worlds. Research and Applications (pp. 67–85). AUP Press.
[2] Fedeli, L., Pennazio, V. (2020). 3D Virtual Worlds to design social stories: an integrated approach in interventions with children with ASD. In Proceedings of EDULEARN20 Conference, (pp. 4735 – 4741). Valencia: IATED Academy.
[3] Fedeli, L., Pennazio, V. (2021).Instructional Design and 3D Virtual Worlds: A Focus on Social Abilities and Autism Spectrum Disorder. In Panconesi, G., Guida, M. (Eds) Handbook of Research on Teaching With Virtual Environments and AI (pp. 444 – 460). Hershey, IGI Global.
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Parsons, S., & Mitchell, P. (2002). The potential of virtual reality in social skills training for people with autistic spectrum disorders. Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, 46(5), 430–443.
[6] Pennazio, V., Fedeli, L. (2019). A proposal to act on Theory of Mind by applying robotics and virtual worlds with children with ASD. Jelks, 15(2), 59–75.
[7] Pennazio, V., Fedeli, L., Datteri, E. (2020). The use of robotics with children with ASD. Results from a pilot study on definition of target behaviors and prompts. In Proceedings of INTED2020 Conference, (pp. 2147- 2156).

Keywords:

Social skills, 3D virtual environments, ASD.