Natural User Interface to Assess Social Skills in Autistic Population

Abstract

The children suffering of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) present several limitations in social communication and interactive skills. State of the art showed that Virtual Reality (VR) represents a valid alternative to learn social skills in ASD. In particular VR offers the advantage to simulate daily life interaction in a replicable and controlled environment. In this paper, we present a novel methodology to evaluate social competence in ASD based on the immersive VR system, featuring natural interaction. The VR system is based on the theoretical model which aims to evaluate the intersubjective interchange in everyday relationship between autistic population and the surrounding environment. We suggest that this technological setup can be a useful tool to increase social competence in ASD and it can become a sophisticated outcome measurement tool for studying the improvement of social competence.