Enhance affective expression and social reciprocity for children with autism spectrum disorder: using virtual reality headsets at schools

Social-emotional deficits in school-aged children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) greatly hinder these children from fully participating in various school activities in the inclusive education setting. Previous studies have demonstrated evidence regarding the effectiveness of using vir...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inInteractive learning environments Vol. 32; no. 3; pp. 1012 - 1035
Main Authors Ip, Horace H. S., Wong, Simpson W. L., Chan, Dorothy F. Y., Li, Chen, Kon, Lo Lo, Ma, Po Ke, Lau, Kate S. Y., Byrne, Julia
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Abingdon Routledge 15.03.2024
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Subjects
affective expression
Autism
autism spectrum disorder
Autism Spectrum Disorders
Control Groups
Experiential Learning
Headsets
Learning
Reciprocity
social reciprocity
Statistical analysis
System effectiveness
Virtual reality
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Summary:Social-emotional deficits in school-aged children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) greatly hinder these children from fully participating in various school activities in the inclusive education setting. Previous studies have demonstrated evidence regarding the effectiveness of using virtual reality (VR) for enhancing the children's affective expression and social reciprocity. However, considering the technical and logistical complexity of the enabling hardware and software systems, how such approaches can be effectively and sustainably delivered in the school setting remains underexplored. This paper presents a study that utilised VR headsets to enhance affective expression and social reciprocity for children with ASD and explored how the approach could be effectively and sustainably delivered at schools. A total of eight VR learning scenarios were designed based on Kolb's experiential learning framework. 176 children aged 6-12 with a clinical diagnosis of ASD participated in the study. The statistical analyses showed that the participants who received the intervention significantly improved in affective expression and social reciprocity, compared to those who were in the control group. Moreover, the approaches to enhance long-term sustainability have also been presented and discussed in this paper.
ISSN:1049-4820
1744-5191
DOI:10.1080/10494820.2022.2107681