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Background: Collaborative storytelling can be a helpful tool to promote cognitive and social skills in adolescents with neurodevelopmental disorders. Aims: The current study aimed to explore the benefits of collaborative storytelling using traditional (TST), digital (DST), and tangible digital (TDST) methodologies. Materials and Methods: Fourteen Spanish students with mild to moderate intellectual disability and other neurodevelopmental comorbid disorders participated in collaborative storytelling sessions in the classroom, following an experimental, mixed, and cross-sectional design. The study comprised three individual assessments of narrative skills and eight collaborative storytelling sessions using different storytelling methodologies. Individual and collaborative stories were videotaped, transcribed verbatim, and analysed for formal and content characteristics. Behaviours and interactions during the collaborative storytelling were analysed for each group and session. Results: The results show a positive effect of collaboration on students' stories, compared to individual performance, regardless of the methodology used. Conclusion: Collaboration, technological device handling, and shared storytelling did not present a barrier for the participants.

Modern technology progresses at an incredibly fast pace. With personal computers, mobile phones, tablets, and the Internet, technology is used in all spheres, affecting our daily lives greatly. Educational games are also taking advantage of the technological process, for example, many useful apps are available for children. Gaming and educational opportunities have expanded because of the development of tablets and smartphones. Teachers have the opportunity to combine physical and electronic objects when creating education materials, so they are not confined to the use of traditional physical objects. Storytelling remains one of the oldest teaching methods for children: the development of technology has given impetus to the creation of tangible digital storytelling, which combines programs with physical objects, creating a single field for learning. Creating stories in which a child can interact with his/her peers has also provided new opportunities for inclusion and cooperation in young children. Indeed, the increased use of speakers, videos, pictures, and other tools that can help to quickly create and easily adapt objects for children with various backgrounds has fostered inclusive teaching. This paper will consider the evolution of the storytelling practice, focusing specifically on tangible digital storytelling and its benefits in young children.

In primates, as well as in other mammals, play fighting (PF) is a complex form of playful activity that is structurally similar to real fighting (RF) and may also be used in a competitive way. Here, we verify the structural key differences that can distinguish PF from RF in adult chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes). We collected 962 h of video recording on 30 adult individuals belonging to four chimpanzee groups (Mona Chimpanzee Sanctuary, Spain; La Vallée des Singes and ZooParc de Beauval, France). We applied different indices—two of which were borrowed from the ecological measures of biodiversity—to test for structural differences between PF (345 sessions) and RF (461 sessions) in the levels of behavior repetition (Repeatability of Same Behavior Index, RSBI), distribution uniformity (Pielou Index, J), variability (Shannon Index, H′) and, symmetry (i.e., reciprocal exchange of offensive/defensive behaviors; Asymmetry Index, AI). Moreover, we compared the session duration between PF and RF. We found that duration and RSBI were higher in PF than RF while AI was higher in RF than PF. No difference was found between J and H′. Interestingly, both females and males maintained similar ranking positions (determined via Normalized David's scores) in RF and PF. Our study indicates that session duration, behavior repetition, and symmetry can be distinctive structural key features of PF whereas dominance role‐reversal, behavior variability, and distribution uniformity were not. PF in adult chimpanzees may have elements of serious contexts (e.g., absence of role‐reversal as in RF) which is in line with the view that play is a blended, multifunctional behavior deriving from the re‐combination of different behavioral systems. Our findings highlight the need to investigate play structure and manifestation in a nuanced way to better understand the actual motivation that underlies what appears to be play. Highlights: Session duration, pattern repetition, and reciprocity were higher in play fighting (PF) than in real fighting (RF). No difference was found in pattern variability and evenness between PF and RF.Dominant male and female chimpanzees in RF maintained similar ranking positions in PF, thus we did not confirm the occurrence of role reversal during play. In adult chimpanzees, PF may have elements of serious context, thus being a possible substitute for aggression or a way to determine and/or maintain dominance relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]