Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

An Intelligent System to Support Social Storytelling for People with ASD

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Intelligent Human Computer Interaction (IHCI 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 13184))

Included in the following conference series:

Abstract

The number of diagnoses of ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) is growing every day. Children suffering from ASD lack of social behaviors, which strongly impacts on the inclusion of the child and his/her own family in the community. Much scientific evidence shows that social storytelling is a valuable tool for developing pro-social behaviors in children with ASD and for articulating their emotional language, empathy, and expressive and verbal communication. To be effective, social stories should be customized for the target user since there exist different levels of ASD. To tackle this issue, this paper proposes an application that supports the semiautomatic creation of social stories. The intelligent system learns the needs of the target user over time and adapts by creating social stories tailored to the ASD level of the disorder. The editor lets non-expert caregivers select the appropriate elements and content representations to be included in the social stories.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 89.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 119.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    https://www.autismspeaks.org/autism-statistics-asd.

  2. 2.

    https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm.

  3. 3.

    https://carolgraysocialstories.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Social-Stories-10.0-10.2-Comparison-Chart.pdf.

References

  1. Bruner, J.: Actual Minds Possible Worlds. Harvard University Press, Cambridge (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Francese, R., Yang, X.: Supporting autism spectrum disorder screening and intervention with machine learning and wearables: a systematic literature review. Complex Intell. Syst. 1–16 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40747-021-00447-1

  3. Gray, C.: Social Stories. Future Horizons, Arlington (1994)

    Google Scholar 

  4. Gray, C.: The New Social Story Book. Future Horizons (2000)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Hanrahan, R., Smith, E., Johnson, H., Constantin, A., Brosnan, M.: A pilot randomised control trial of digitally-mediated social stories for children on the autism spectrum. J. Autism Dev. Disord. 50(12), 4243–4257 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04490-8

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Karkhaneh, M., Clark, B., Ospina, M.B., Seida, J.C., Smith, V., Hartling, L.: Social stories\(^{\rm TM}\) to improve social skills in children with autism spectrum disorder: a systematic review. Autism 14(6), 641–662 (2010)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Li, X., Kang, X.: Combining computational thinking and Chibitronics and Makey Makey to develop a social story teaching aid system to improve social reciprocity and emotional expression skills for autistic children. In: 2021 12th International Conference on E-Education, E-Business, E-Management, and E-Learning, pp. 1–5 (2021)

    Google Scholar 

  8. Moreau, K.A., Eady, K., Sikora, L., Horsley, T.: Digital storytelling in health professions education: a systematic review. BMC Med. Educ. 18(1), 1–9 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Petrovic, M., Gaggioli, A.: The potential of transformative interactive video storytelling for improving caregivers’ mental wellbeing: a research protocol. Annu. Rev. Cyberther. Telemed. 2020, 275 (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Robin, B.R.: Digital storytelling: a powerful technology tool for the 21st century classroom. Theor. Pract. 47(3), 220–228 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Schank, R.C.: Tell me a Story: A New Look at Real And Artificial Memory. Charles Scribner’s Sons (1990)

    Google Scholar 

  12. Smith, E., Constantin, A., Johnson, H., Brosnan, M.: Digitally-mediated social stories support children on the autism spectrum adapting to a change in a ‘Real-World’context. J. Autism Dev. Disord. 51, 514–526 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04558-5

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Varnava, V., Constantin, A., Alexandru, C.A.: ChangeIT: toward an app to help children with autism cope with changes. In: Interactivity and the Future of the Human-Computer Interface, pp. 72–94. IGI Global (2020)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Yao, L., Peng, N., Ralph, W., Knight, K., Zhao, D., Yan, R.: Plan-and-write: towards better automatic storytelling. In: The Thirty-Third AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI-19) (2019)

    Google Scholar 

  15. Zhu, J., Connell, J., Kerns, C., Lyon, N., Vecere, N., Lim, D., Myers, C.: Toward interactive social stories for children with autism. IN: CHI PLAY 2014, pp. 453–454 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Salerno, Fisciano, Italy

    Rita Francese

  2. Kent State University at Stark, North Canton, USA

    Angela Guercio

  3. University of Bari, Bari, Italy

    Veronica Rossano

Authors
  1. Rita Francese
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Angela Guercio
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Veronica Rossano
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rita Francese .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA

    Jong-Hoon Kim

  2. University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia

    Madhusudan Singh

  3. Kent State University, Kent, OH, USA

    Javed Khan

  4. Indian Institute of Information Technology, Allahabad, India

    Uma Shanker Tiwary

  5. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Marigankar Sur

  6. Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, Seoul, Korea (Republic of)

    Dhananjay Singh

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2022 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Francese, R., Guercio, A., Rossano, V. (2022). An Intelligent System to Support Social Storytelling for People with ASD. In: Kim, JH., Singh, M., Khan, J., Tiwary, U.S., Sur, M., Singh, D. (eds) Intelligent Human Computer Interaction. IHCI 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13184. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98404-5_35

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98404-5_35

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-98403-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-98404-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation