Design of an Interactive Virtual Reality System, InViRS, for Joint Attention Practice in Autistic Children

IEEE Trans Neural Syst Rehabil Eng. 2021:29:1866-1876. doi: 10.1109/TNSRE.2021.3108351. Epub 2021 Sep 16.

Abstract

Many children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) exhibit atypical gaze behaviors related to joint attention, a fundamental social-communication skill. Specifically, children with ASD show differences in the skills of gaze sharing and gaze following. In this work we present a novel virtual reality (VR)-based system, called InViRS, in which children with ASD play games allowing them to practice gaze sharing and gaze following. InViRS has three main design contributions: (i) a closed-loop joint attention paradigm with real-time tracking of the participant's eye gaze and game performance measures, (ii) an assistive feedback mechanism that provides guidance and hints in real time, and (iii) a controller that adaptively changes the avatar's gaze prompts according to the performance measures. Results from a pilot study to evaluate the feasibility of InViRS with 9 autistic1 children and 9 typically developing (TD) children offered preliminary support for the feasibility of successful gameplay as well as positive impacts on the targeted skills of gaze sharing and gaze following.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

  • Attention
  • Autism Spectrum Disorder*
  • Autistic Disorder*
  • Child
  • Fixation, Ocular
  • Humans
  • Pilot Projects
  • Virtual Reality*