Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Pediatrics and Parenting
Date Submitted: May 2, 2019
Open Peer Review Period: May 2, 2019 - May 10, 2019
Date Accepted: Aug 14, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Experiences With Virtual Reality Head-Mounted Display Support for Joint Attention: A Usability and Feasibility Pilot of Floreo’s Joint Attention Module
ABSTRACT
Background:
Advances in virtual reality (VR) technology offer new opportunities to design supports for the core behaviors associated with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) that promote progress toward optimal outcomes. Floreo has developed a novel mobile VR platform that pairs a user receiving instruction on target skills with an adult monitor.
Objective:
The primary objective of this pilot was to explore the feasibility of using Floreo’s Joint Attention Module in school-age children with autism in a special education setting. A secondary objective was to explore a novel joint attention measure designed for use with school-aged children, and to observe if there was a suggestion of change in joint attention skills from pre-intervention to post-intervention.
Methods:
Twelve participants ranging in age from 9 to 16 years received training with the Joint Attention Module for 14 sessions over 5 weeks.
Results:
No serious side effects were reported, and no participants dropped out of the study due to undesirable side effects. Based on monitor data, 95% of the time participants tolerated the headset, 95% of the time participants seemed to enjoy using Floreo, and 96% of the time the VR experience was reported as valuable. In addition, scoring of the joint attention measure suggested a positive change in participant skills related to total number of interactions, use of eye contact, and initiation of interactions.
Conclusions:
Study results suggest that Floreo’s Joint Attention Module is safe and well-tolerated by students with ASD, and preliminary data also suggest that use of Floreo is related to improvements in fundamental joint attention skills.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.