Application and effectiveness of Virtual Reality in teaching basic concepts to children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

In this study we compared traditional teaching methods used for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) to the cutting-edge technology, i.e. Virtual Reality (VR), in order to assess the effectiveness of VR in teaching basic concepts to children with ASD. Thirty-two children with ASD entered the experiment and were randomly assigned to the VR or the control group. For the VR group, a teaching material was developed, an easy-to play VR game called Geometry Park, to teach concepts of shapes and colors to children with ASD, by virtually travelling to a world full of geometrical shapes in different colors and sizes. For the control group, a similar teaching material was prepared using flash cards; i.e. same shapes and colors as in Geometry Park was created for the control group. Each subject underwent ten sessions of play-and-learn. At the end of the sessions, the research assistant asked them to identify ۲۳ shapes and colors using the “test flash cards”, and reported the score for each item. The result of two-sample t-test did not show a statistically significant difference between the means of the two groups (p=۰.۴۵), which we believe is a false negative and caused by the type II error. This is because only ۱۶ subjects completed the sessions, resulting in a smaller sample size and a diminished study power (۵۰% drop-off). However, the medium effect size found for the VR group compared to the control group (Cohen’s d=۰.۳۹) shows a clear potential for VR to provide a better environment for teaching basic concepts to children with ASD. Further research is warranted to confirm the observed potential.

کلیدواژه ها:

Autism Spectrum Disorder ، Virtual Reality ، Teaching ، Colors ، Geometrical Shapes