Virtual reality helps autistic kids develop skills

A playmate named Sam, a talking dog named Buddy and an Israeli street leading to a Toys"R"Us store all have starring roles in a new generation of virtual reality games designed to teach basic safety and social skills to children diagnosed with autism.

For school-aged children with autism spectrum disorders, including Asperger’s syndrome, skills often taken for granted can be torturously difficult, whether staying within the confines of a yard, crossing a street or navigating the social norms of group playtime.

Aided by the observation that autistic children relate especially well to virtual reality and computer programs, an entire field of research has sprung up in the last 15 years. No one has a definitive explanation for the technological attraction, though Justine Cassell, director of Northwestern University’s Center for Technology & Social Behavior, suggested that a virtual reality program’s infinite patience certainly helps.

“Technology is also more predictable and controllable,” she said, “and autistic children like predictability a lot.”

Even so, a particularly convincing virtual reality simulation can help an autistic child transfer new skills back to a real situation — a common difficulty among children with autism, who often focus more on details than on context. New technology can provide an in-between setting, “particularly in a virtual world that’s not moving as quickly and doesn’t have as many cues that might distract you,” said Gary Mesibov, director of the University of North Carolina’s Division TEACCH, a program focusing on the treatment and education of autistic children.

Crossing the street — safely
For researchers at the University of Haifa in Israel, a somewhat pared-down urban street scene has proven its worth in teaching moderately functioning autistic children how to safely cross the street, gaining more independence in the process. Naomi Josman and colleagues created a virtual crossing through a divided roadway, eventually leading to a Toys"R"Us store. The program kept track of how often its six participants, aged 7 to 16, looked both ways before crossing, whether they observed approaching cars, how often they crossed during a red light, and how many virtual accidents they had.

Josman, a professor of occupational therapy, said the kids immediately took to their virtual reality practice sessions, and become increasingly focused. They also improved noticeably. At the onset of their training, the students averaged a score of only 2.66 out of 9. By the end, nearly all had advanced to the final level of difficulty, achieving an average score of 8.91 and reducing their cumulative accident tally from 22 to zero.

But would those improvements translate back to the real world? To find out, the Israeli researchers videotaped the children both before and after their virtual training as they walked within a park that uses traffic lights and small cars to simulate street crossings in a controlled environment. One low-functioning eighth-grader in the study, a 16-year-old boy named Ben, essentially ignored both his teacher and a traffic light during a visit before his virtual reality training.

“At the end, he was standing and waiting for the green light to come,” Josman recalled. “It was really very, very impressive.”

In all, three of the six students were able to transfer their virtual reality skills to the park’s street crossings. The results are in press in the International Journal on Disability and Human Development.

Josman said her team is now upgrading the virtual reality system to make it more user-friendly and customizable, a process she expects to last another six months. The new version will add more skill levels and vary elements like the available light, the speed and number of cars and the crosswalk locations.

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