The utility of the virtual reality in autistic disorder treatment

Abstract

Autistic disorder patients lack the social communication abilities and need interventional therapy to alleviate such symptoms. The cost of health care and treatment across the lifespan of patients were up to $3.2 million which places a crushing burden on the poor patients and their families. To relieve the symptoms of disease and reduce the financial pressure of the patients, many methods were proposed. The normal therapy is proceeding under the instruction of professional doctors in the hospital. Each person need to spend 6–8 h in the specialized institutions. Given the cost of treatment and time, the treatment could not carry out continually which could lead to reducing the curative effectiveness. The current study explores the utility of the virtual reality interventions to the autistic disorder patients. In the virtual environment, the patients could be receiving treatment continually and practice their social communication abilities in different social scenes. To generate immersive virtual social environment, a VR engine (Unity3D 5.0) were used. Some typical social communication scenes were also established which include the classroom, shopping mall and hospital. In these virtual scenes, the ASD patients were required to communicate with artificial intelligence (AI) players and finish some tasks. The coach which played by the researcher or expert would send appropriate instructions to help the patient when they encounter the difficulties. Two different statistic tables will be collected twice: one is before the training, the other one is after the training. The two checklists are Autism Behavior Scale (ABS) table and Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS) table. By comparing the scores which achieved in different time, researchers could assess the result of treatment and changing the content of the treatment in time. Four ASD children who had confirmed ASD diagnoses from a clinical doctor take part in this experiment. Informed consent was obtained from the parents before participation. The average age of the subjects is 6 (±1). These volunteers were asked to execute nine tasks in different social scenes, which include communicate with strange teachers, sellers and doctors. All these tasks have three levels: in lv1, only one AI player in the scenes, in lv2, two AI players in scenes, in lv3, no less than three AI players will in the scenes. The patients in which scenes at which levels is controlled by researchers. According to the results, we find that after the training that the scores of the ASD patients are raised. Such results suggest that the VR technology could very helpful for the adjuvant therapy of the ASD.