Using ‘Ambient Intelligence’ for Compensating Intellectual Difficulties of People with Severe Learning Difficulties and/or Autistic Spectrum Disorders

This paper describes a set of services and software created so that what is called ‘ambient intelligence’ would compensate for the ‘intellectual difficulties’ that people from this collective have. Existing concepts and standards of ambient intelligence are strongly reinforced through the use of the exact current user’s position as a key factor to calculate how the ‘digital home’ or any ‘digital environment’ behaves at every moment. This will be obtained using both Wi-Fi personal locators (embedded in necklaces or bracelets) and Wi-Fi communication from the PDA. This mix, together with individual capabilities and preferences, makes the development of a wide range of services possible when c…

Agency and Presence: A Common Dependence on Subjectivity?

This paper argues that presence, as shown in virtual environments, can usefully be seen as comprising various subtypes and that these in turn may have common conceptual and ontological features with a sense of agency as defined by Russell (1996, Agency: Its Role in Mental Development, Erlbaum.). Furthermore, an analysis of Russell's characterization of the concept of agency may be useful for acquiring insight into the sense of presence itself and the variables affecting it. Empirical evidence from cognitive developmental research and the positive results of attempts to develop symbolic understanding in people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in virtual environments suggest that presenc…

Development of symbolic play through the use of virtual reality tools in children with autistic spectrum disorders: two case studies.

Difficulties in understanding symbolism have been documented as characteristic of autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs). In general, virtual reality (VR) environments offer a set of potential advantages for educational intervention in ASD. In particular, VR offers the advantage, for teaching pretend play and for understanding imagination, of it being possible to show these imaginary transformations explicitly. This article reports two case studies of children with autism (aged 8:6 and 15:7, both male), examining the effectiveness of using a VR tool specifically designed to work on teaching understanding of pretend play. The results, confirmed by independent observers, showed a significant adv…

Abstract concept and imagination teaching through Virtual Reality in people with Autism Spectrum Disorders