Digital object-based learning for people with ASD: a training experience within heritage education contexts

The paper aims at presenting a training experience for future educators carried out during the academic year 2022/2023 on the use of Digital Object-Based Learning (OBL) for people with Autism Spectrum Disorders. Three different webinars, designed within the Erasmus+ Spektrum project, have been realised with a focus on the design, implementation, and evaluation of personalised museum educational experiences to foster social inclusion and wellbeing within people with specific educational needs through Object-based learning (OBL). As stated by the literature in the field, hands-on learning within heritage education contexts can really enhance people's interest in and understanding of a topic/subject and develop important transverse skills, thus promoting cultural participation of users at risk of social exclusion. During the webinars, specific models for planning learning sessions with ASD people were presented, together with wellbeing and empathy assessment tools to be used within museum context. The training experience ended with a digital OBL session, where museum educators were asked to collaboratively analyse, interpret, and evaluate digitised museum objects. More than 90 in-training educators, from different Italian and Spanish institutions, attended the webinars: results from a final assessment survey are presented in order to highlight strengths and weaknesses of the training experience, the soft and hard skills most promoted and the educational needs of the participants, trying to identify challenges and potential transformations within digital heritage education context.