The iSocial team originally envisioned that youth would experience a 3D VLE customized to support social interaction and learning for the ASD population and adapted to the needs of the individual. The customization and adaptivity of features (e.g., representation, orthotics, and notification) and the study of the impact of that customization and adaptivity on presence, co-presence, behavior management and learning social competence guide the design and development of the system. By customization we mean being attuned to the needs and preferences of youth with ASD. For example the conversation console is a feature of iSocial customized to the needs of youth with ASD to have a mechanism for regulating some aspects of conversation, such as turn taking. By adaptivity we mean that the interface adjusts to how the social deficit or learning objective is manifest for this individual and to changes and development of the individual over time. For example, once a youth learns turn taking and is ready to practice this skill in conversation, the console can reduce the control it exerts or remove that feature. Similarly if a youth does not adopt the turn taking controls in the console, other forms of control can be substituted such as removing other members from view until it is the youths turn to speak.
