On the 15th and 16th of November 2022, the partners of the ARBIT project (Augmented reality for body schema, pointing and imitation training in autism) an initiative co-funded by the European Commission, met for a two-day meeting, to pool the progress of the ARBIT project advances in improving the development of body awareness, joint attention and imitation skills in students with autism and intellectual disabilities.

The French partners, Jacqueline Nadel and Charles Tijus, on behalf of EPHE, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes / CHArt-LUTIN welcomed to the city of Paris.

The first day of the transnational meeting covered two relevant issues in terms of the progress of the research study and the implementation of the ARBIT project and the following steps.

The first session led by Patricia Pérez, from Fundación Adapta, coordinator of the first intellectual output, focused on inform of the point in which the investigation of the project is now. To do this, he reviewed everything that was done, from the preparation of the investigation to now, which is in the intervention phase. Showing how this intervention is being monitored and recorded.

Afterwards, each of the schools that are participating in the study: Trebol School from Autismo Avila; Association Autism and Karatay Özel School, have transferred their impressions and the technical issues that they have observed in the intervention, to get a review of the results of the focus groups in each country in order to optimize and further improve the intervention being carried out.

The second part of the day, Charles Tijus from EPHE, made a fantastic visit explaining the facilities of LUTIN. Later on, Jacqueline Nadel and Justin Mallleret- SOS-Solidarités have shown us another example of the application The Pictogram room.

In conclusion of the session, we need to keep in mind that the finding from the research phase will constitute the basis for the elaboration of the ARBIT training module, which is the Output 2 of ARBIT project. The common points and coincidences highlighted by the associations that have tested the project will be the basis for developing teacher training materials and producing a MOOC to improve teaching skills in the field of imitation and autism through the use of available AR technologies, the Outcome 2 (O2): the MOOC.

That´s why to end the first day of the meeting, Gerardo Herrera, from the Institute of the University of Valencia, the coordinator of the project, transferred to all the partners the different structures that the MOOC can have.

On the second day of the seventh transnational meeting of ARBIT, Gerardo Herrera continued to address different aspects of the MOOC, such as possible structures, defining contents… to assess and implement a strategy to follow in this phase of the project.

The Castilla y León Autism Federation, transfer to all partners an analysis and monitoring of the evolution of what has been done in the communication of the project so far.

Finally, three multiplier events to disseminate the results of the project were discussed, the first two in Spain in the cities of Avila and Valladolid and the last one in Konya (Turkey). The latter will be held in conjunction with the last international meeting, which will also take place in Konya.

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