The application of immersive virtual reality for students with ASD: A review between 1990–2017

Abstract

We live in a society where Technology has an important position in our diary activities. Everybody wants to have the last device to be in contact with his family and friends. Additionally, these took are being applied in other fields such as Education. One of these tools is: Virtual reality that can respond the need of our students. It allows the designer an important control of the system that can be useful for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder. These students can use Virtual Reality as a support to practice social situation that can be generalized in real environments. Therefore, our research provides a state-of-the-art review of what studies have applied Immersive Virtual Reality to students with Autism Spectrum Disorder. The sample of study has been 12 papers in the period 1996–2017. To analyse these research, it has been proposed these variables: participants’ features, research questions, instrument, type of activities, results, and limitations. These study variables have been chosen because they are the most repeated in all research using the experimental method. According to the results gathered: it has been worked with small sample, without control group and interactive activities. Moreover, the vast majority of the studies are focused on social skills.