Virtual environments for social skills training: the importance of scaffolding in practice

ABSTRACT

Virtual Environments (VE's) offer the potential for users to explore social situations and 'try out' different behaviour responses for a variety of simulates social interactions. One of the challenges for the VE developer is how to construct the VE to allow freedom of exploration and flexibility in interactive behaviour, without the risk of users deliberately or inadvertently missing important learning goals. Scaffolding embedded within the VE software can aid the user's learning in different contexts, such as individual, tutored or group learning situations. This paper describes two single-user VE scenarios that have been developed within the AS interactive project and presents observation results from initial trials conducted at a user school.

REFERENCES

• 1: Robert M. Aiken , Jyotsna N. Aditya, The golden rule and the ten commandments of teleteaching: harnessing the power of technology in education, Education and Information Technologies, v.2 n.1, p.5-15, 1997- 1998 [doi>10.1023/A:1018676106066 ]
• 2: Attwood, T., Gray, C., Understanding and Teaching Friendship skills, www.tonyattwood.com/paper3.htm (visited December 2001)
• 3: Autism Society of America, Educating Children With Autism, www.autism-society.org/packages/educating_children.pdf (visited December 2001).
• 4: Beardon, L., Parsons, S. & Neale, H. (2001) An interdisciplinary approach to investigating the use of virtual reality environments for people with Asperger Syndrome. Educational and Child Psychology, 18, 2, 53--62.
• 5: Cobb, S., Beardon, L., Eastgate, R., Glover, T., Kerr, S., Neale, H., Parsons, S., Benford, S., Hopkins, E., Mitchell, P., Reynard, G., and Wilson, J.R. (in press), Applied Virtual Environments to support learning of Social Interaction Skills in users with Asperger's Syndrome, to appear in Digital Creativity, 13, 1 (2002)
• 6: Cronin, P. (1997), Report on the Applications of Virtual Reality Technology to Education. HCRC, University of Edinburgh, Electronic Document: www.cogsci.ed.ac.uk/~paulus/Work/Vranded/vr.htm (visited December 2001)
• 7: Joanna K. Crosier , Sue V. G. Cobb , John R. Wilson, Experimental Comparison of Virtual Reality with Traditional Teaching Methods for Teaching Radioactivity, Education and Information Technologies, v.5 n.4, p.329-343, December 2000 [doi>10.1023/A:1012009725532 ]
• 8: Dautenhahn, K. (2000), Design issues on interactive environments for children with autism. In P. Sharkey, A Cesarani, L Pugnetti & A Rizzo (Eds) 3rd ICDVRAT, Sardinia Italy; University of Reading, 153--161.
• 9: Dean, K.L., Asay-Davis, X.S., Finn, E.M., Foley, T., Fdesner, J.A., Imai, Y., Naylor, B.J., Wustner, S.R., Fisher, S.S., and Wilson, K.R. (2000), Virtual Explorer: Interactive Virtual Environment for Education. Presence, 9, 6 (December), 505--523.
• 10: Dick, W. (1992) An instructional designer's view of constructivism. In T.M. Duffy and D.H. Jonassen (Eds) Constructivism and the technology of instruction: A conversation. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• 11: Ehrich, R., McCreary, F. and Ramsay, A. (1998) Design of Technology Based Environments that Support both Teachers and Students. Proceedings of the National Educating Computing Conference, 134--142, San Diego, CA
• 12: Tuula Eriksson , Jaakko Kurhila , Erkki Sutinen, An agent-based framework for special needs education, Proceedings of the sixth Scandinavian conference on Artificial intelligence, p.270-271, August 1998, Helsinki, Finland
• 13: Government of Saskatchewan Special Education Unit (1998), Educating The Student With Asperger Syndrome, www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/k/pecs/se/docs/autism/educate.html (visited December 2001)
• 14: Heppel, S. (1994), Multimedia and learning: Normal children, normal lives and real change. In Underwood, J. (Ed) Computer Based Learning: Potential into Practice, 152--151, David Fulton Publisher, London.
• 15: Hutinger, P., and Rippey, R. (1997). How five autistic children ages three to five responded to computers in their special education classrooms. Presented at Closing the Gap Conference, Minneapolis, MN. www.closingthegap.com/lib/pdf/1998/Feb-Mar98/hutinger.PM.pdf (visited December 2001)
• 16: Jonassen, D. (1994), Thinking technology: Towards a constructivist design model. Educational Technology, 34, 4, 34--37.
• 17: Steven J Kerr, Scaffolding: design issues in single & collaborative virtual environments for social skills learning, Proceedings of the workshop on Virtual environments 2002, May 30-31, 2002, Barcelona, Spain
• 18: Vanja R. Kiswarday, A-B-C and 1-2-3 on computers: computer as a didactic tool in education of children with a severe mental retardation, Proceedings of the 5th international conference on Computers helping people with special needs. Part II, p.689-695, December 1996, Linz, Austria
• 19: Lincoln, B., and Strommen, E.F. (1992), Constructivism, Technology and the Future of Classroom Learning. Education and Urban Society, 4, 466--476
• 20: McComas, J., Pivik, J., and Laflamme, M. (1998), Current Uses of Virtual Reality for Children with Disabilities. In Riva, G., Wiederhold, B.K., Molinari, E. (Eds) Virtual Environments in Clinical Psychology and Neuroscience, Ios Press, Amsterdam.
• 21: The National Autistic Society, Computer applications for people with autism Factsheet. www.oneworld.org/autism_uk/factsheet/computers.pdf (visited December 2001)
• 22: Neale, H.R., Brown, D.J., Cobb, S.V.G., & Wilson, J.R., (1999), Structured Evaluation of Virtual Environments for Special-Needs Education, Presence, 8, 3, 264--282.
• 23: Parsons, S., Beardon, L., Neale, H.R., Reynard, G., Eastgate, R., Wilson, J.R., Cobb, S.V.G., Benford, S.D., Mitchell, P. & Hopkins, E. (2000), Development of social skills amongst adults with Asperger's Syndrome using virtual environments: the 'AS Interactive' project. In P. Sharkey, A Cesarani, L Pugnetti & A Rizzo (Eds) 3rd ICDVRAT, Sardinia Italy; University of Reading, 163--170.
• 24: Taylor, J., (1996), Moving into Multimedia: Issues for Teaching and Learning, Innovations in Education & Training International, 33, 1, 22--29.
• 25: Whitelock, D. (1999), Investigating the Role of Task Structure and Interface Support in Two Virtual Learning Environments. Journal of Continuing Engineering Education and Lifelong Learning, 9, 2, 291--301.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.4 COMPUTERS AND SOCIETY
      K.4.2 Social Issues
          Subjects: Assistive technologies for persons with disabilities

Additional Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.1 Multimedia Information Systems
          Subjects: Artificial, augmented, and virtual realities

  I. Computing Methodologies
  I.3 COMPUTER GRAPHICS
      I.3.7 Three-Dimensional Graphics and Realism
          Subjects: Virtual reality

General Terms:
Algorithms, Documentation, Experimentation, Human Factors

Keywords:
Virtual Environments, autism, scaffolding of learning, social skills training