The project of professional career orientation complex for ASD pupils based on virtual reality technologies

Abstract

The paper analyses the application of virtual reality technologies to career guidance of children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). An overview of studies using virtual reality technologies conducted with children and adolescents with ASD, including diagnosis and teaching of schoolchildren with autism spectrum disorders, is made. The authors follow “The Theory of Central Coherence” by U. Frith, realizing symptoms of autism spectrum disorders not as disorders but as peculiar features and a special cognitive style. The study describes the features of vocational guidance of ASD individuals on the basis of the sources about the difficulties of people with ASD in the transition from school to secondary and higher education. The authors’ project of a complex vocational guidance using virtual reality technology for students with ASD introducing “a city-farmer” profession is represented. The tripartite structure of the vocational guidance complex is showed, the need for interaction of specialists with the parents of a child with ASD, as well as identification of “savant skills” at the first stage of career guidance work was emphasized. Examples of virtual spaces developed by one of the authors are given, with which people with ASD interact by the determination their possible professional trajectory. The tasks and responses of users in the vocational guidance complex for schoolchildren are described. A conclusion about the possibility of expanding the list of professions in the vocational guidance simulator for children with ASD is made.