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Brief report: Two case studies using virtual reality as a learning tool for autistic children

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Summary

The children complied with most requests. Some of our teaching goals were limited by technology or space while others were limited by the difficulty of presenting a task to the children in a way that was understandable within their environment. However, the opportunity to introduce this technology to children was an important first step in exploring the potential VR offers to understanding the perceptual processes involved in autism.

Our results indicate that the children will accept a VR helmet and wear it, identify familiar objects and qualities of these objects in their environment while using the helmet, and locate and move toward objects in their environment while wearing the helmet.

More research is necessary to verify the potential in this area, especially to discover if learning experiences through VR generalize to other environments, but it appears virtual reality may provide a useful tool for furthering our understanding of autism and guiding efforts at treatment and intervention.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. North Carolina State University, USA

    Dorothy Strickland

  2. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, USA

    Lee M. Marcus, Gary B. Mesibov & Kerry Hogan

Authors
  1. Dorothy Strickland
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  2. Lee M. Marcus
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  3. Gary B. Mesibov
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  4. Kerry Hogan
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Additional information

Thanks to Division Inc. for their loan of the equipment and offices for the test, and to Ed and Jim Bedford, Thea, Larry, and Lauren Gardner, Kayren McNight, Kay Flinn, and Libby Webb for their help and ideas.

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Strickland, D., Marcus, L.M., Mesibov, G.B. et al. Brief report: Two case studies using virtual reality as a learning tool for autistic children. J Autism Dev Disord 26, 651–659 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02172354

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02172354

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