Instructional Design and 3D Virtual Worlds: A Focus on Social Abilities and Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Starting from the analysis of the typical difficulties of the condition of autism spectrum syndrome and the literature relating to the effectiveness of the use of virtual worlds, the chapter presents the design and implementation of social stories within a 3D social virtual world, namely edMondo. The environment was used for a second phase of a piloting of a research project about the development of social abilities in children with ASD and involve the use of social scenarios thanks to the interaction with a robot avatar.