Road-crossing module in VR therapy
- MSC DA 2017-2019
This is a pilot study to investigate the ability of a virtual reality based intervention to improve cognitive, social and self-care skill in children with autism.Autism is a behaviourally-dened condition, but is caused by a number of dierent known and unknown biologically based brain dysfunctions that aect the developing brain's ability to handle information.Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder.One in 68 children are diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder(ASD) all around the world according to the Centre of Autism Disease Control and Prevention Survey, makes it a demanding problem to be addressed. Many children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) are not independent in street crossing.This skill is particularly crucial because it involves exposure to potentially dangerous situations and is an important step in the development of independence.In Virtual Reality (VR) it facilitates a safe environment enabling a gradual increase in the complexity of task approaching the condition of real life.scored. A pedestrian safety checklist scored from taped video clips assessed the children's street crossing skills within a protected real sidewalk before and after VR intervention. The results demonstrated that children with ASD were capable of learning to use the Virtual Environment (VE). Signicant dierences were found between the performance of the experimental and control groups within the VE.Finally, half of the experimental subjects made considerable improvement in their pedestrian behavior within the protected real-street setting following the VR intervention. The results indicate that VR may be used for teaching street-crossing skills due the likelihood to real life situations.