Virtual reality helps autistic kids develop skills

Guided by Buddy
Dorothy Strickland, who completed some of the first studies on virtual reality and autism while a computer scientist at North Carolina State University in the mid-'90s, has since developed a range of software programs that feature cartoon characters teaching autistic children how to respond to everything from a fire to a smile. Nearly a dozen options are now available from her Raleigh-based company, Virtual Reality Aids, Inc., and its Web site, www.do2learn.com.

In a program called “My Yard,” an expressive dog named Buddy leads children through a circus-themed game that reinforces the importance of staying in their yard. “Afterwards, they’ll say, ‘Buddy showed me how to do this.’ They make a connection with the character,” Strickland said. Among the participants in her multiple study groups who can use arrow keys on a keyboard and learn in a virtual work space, 80 percent have been able to transfer their new skills to the real world after only 20 or 30 minutes of virtual learning.

For older, high-functioning children, many of whom are mainstreamed in schools, impairments in communication, social interactions, imagination and flexibility can lead to depression and isolation. In response, Strickland’s group has designed programs leading them through the tricky challenge of correctly interpreting and responding to social cues, whether in facial expressions or postures.

Strickland’s team is also revisiting research aimed at helping autistic children master restaurant scenarios, an effort that uses Flash-animated videos to explain what normally happens in a restaurant and why. When they’re ready for a one-on-one interaction, they can enter a virtual space with a behavioral therapist. To facilitate those sessions, Strickland’s group is teaming up with the University of Florida’s Digital Worlds Institute to create safe practice spaces within the virtual world Second Life. A second phase of the project may include up to 20 social settings, including virtual classrooms, homes and movie theaters.

A virtual playmate
Within Cassell’s Northwestern University research group, social interactions and communication skills among children with high-functioning autism and Asperger’s syndrome fall under the watchful eyes of a virtual peer named Sam.

“It’s not a tutor that teaches. It plays the role of a peer that models appropriate behaviors and tries to evoke those from autistic kids,” Cassell said. In a playroom-lab, Sam takes the form of a life-sized cartoon of a typical 7- or 8-year-old child. The image, displayed on a large drop-down or plasma screen, is projected against a background that matches the actual room, creating the illusion of a shared space.

“It has a computational intelligence that allows it to respond to children’s behaviors with behaviors of its own,” Cassell said of the gender and race-ambiguous character. Given the limits of current technology, especially unreliable speech recognition programs for children, much of Sam’s intelligence is controlled by researchers in a “Wizard of Oz” setup, in which they literally hide behind a curtain with a control panel in hand.

A miniature wooden castle anchors the play session, with its front end in the real world and its back end appearing in Sam’s virtual world. Children in the study group can play with three figurines, while Sam’s eyes track their movements. And when a child puts a figurine in the castle’s “magic attic,” the doll reappears in Sam’s hand. “It gives the impression that the real children and virtual child are sharing toys,” Cassell said.

The “mixed reality” environment may help some children overcome the difficulty of getting a lesson in a virtual setting to stick in the real world. It helps, of course, that Sam is an eager playmate, featuring both a voice and a story-telling style typical of children. “Sam can tell a bit of a story and say, ‘Now it’s your turn,’ and the real child is invited to play,” Cassell said.

Although the study is still preliminary, Cassell said observations of six autistic children aged 7 to 11 during half-hour play sessions suggest they were significantly more likely to respond to Sam’s invitation than one from a real child. Importantly, the autistic children’s story narratives also made more sense within a two-way conversation, or were more contingent, in Sam’s company. Plus, they became more and more engaged as they played.

For the project’s next phase, Cassell wants to give the children more opportunity to mold Sam’s behavior, first by operating the hidden controls themselves — and then by designing and naming their own control panels based on which options they think are most important.

The results, Cassell said, could shed new light on why communication is so difficult for autistic children. Do they lack the basic skills, or is something else inhibiting them?

Although her early evidence is only anecdotal, she said, “what we’re finding is that some of the kids that we put in front of these control panels very much have the skills, when the engagement happens via a stand-in virtual child.”

Perhaps as a proxy, Sam removes some of the stress of being with another child. The University of North Carolina’s Mesibov said he found much the same thing when he asked a costumed attendee at a program-sponsored Halloween party why the annual functions always seemed to work the best among young autistic adults.

The articulate young man’s reply: “It’s easier for me to play the part of somebody else than myself.”

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