Application and Effectiveness of Virtual Reality in Teaching Basic Concepts to Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

 This study compares traditional teaching methods with cutting-edge virtual reality (VR) technology to assess its effectiveness in teaching basic concepts to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

 Thirty-two children with ASD were included in the study and randomly assigned to either the VR or the control group. For the VR group, a teaching material was developed as an easy-to-play VR game called Geometry Park to teach concepts of shapes and colors to children with ASD, by virtually traveling through a world filled with geometrical shapes in different colors and sizes. For the control group, similar teaching material was prepared using flashcards with shapes and colors similar to those in Geometry Park. Each subject underwent ten play-and-learn sessions. At the end of the sessions, the research assistant asked them to identify 23 shapes and colors using “test flash cards” and reported the scores for each item.

 The result of the two-sample t-test did not show a statistically significant difference between the means of the two groups (P=0.45), which might be a false negative due to Type II error. However, a medium effect size was observed for the VR group compared to the control group (Cohen’s d=0.39).

 The results of this experiment did not demonstrate a statistically significant difference between the VR and the control groups. However, a medium effect size was found for the VR group, which is “clinically significant”.