0000000000246509
AUTHOR
Cristina De Pablo
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…
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…