Background

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition that affects, among other dimensions, an individual's ability to recognize, express, and interpret emotions. This difficulty in emotional processing limits social inclusion and well-being for children with ASD and represents a key focus for early therapeutic intervention. While traditional interventions for emotional recognition exist, technology offers complementary opportunities that have not yet been sufficiently explored in therapeutic settings.

This project aims to design, develop, and evaluate EmoBosque, a virtual reality prototype aimed at supporting the teaching of emotional recognition to children with ASD within a therapeutic environment. The system was developed using a user-centered design methodology structured in three phases: a contextual study involving semi-structured interviews with therapists and caregivers; participatory prototype design featuring co-design sessions; and iterative evaluation of the functional prototype.

EmoBosque integrates two main components: a web module, which allows therapists to customize each session based on the patient's sensory, emotional, and cognitive profile; and an immersive virtual reality environment developed in Unity 2021.3 LTS for Meta Quest 2 devices, featuring emotional scenarios set in a forest, emotional identification activities, and configurable positive reinforcement mechanisms. Real-time communication between the two components ensures that the therapist's settings are directly reflected in the user experience.

The functional prototype was evaluated through ten individual sessions with people with ASD—ranging from Level 1 to Level 3 and aged 4 to 32—in collaboration with the association *Esperanza para el Autismo* (ESPAU). Participating therapists reported general acceptance of the system and identified specific areas for improvement in future iterations, notably simplifying the interaction interface for the preschool group and moving scene transition controls to the web platform. The system's key distinguishing feature compared to previous proposals in the literature is its web-based customization module, which enables the therapist to play an active role in designing each session. The study results provide a functional foundation for developing future, more extensive versions aimed at measuring the system's clinical efficacy.

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