The University of The West of England (UWE) have published an article relating to autism and how technology can be put to good use : Head-mounted virtual reality could help people with autism learn social skills and develop employment opportunities.

Whereas the headline and the latter part of the article are related to HMD’s and how a small test group of people on the autism spectrum reacted, the earlier part of the article deals with autism, games and virtual worlds, with positive results reported by Dr Nigel Newbutt, Associate Head of Media and Digital Cultures at UWE  :

Dr Newbutt has investigated how virtual world platforms such as Second Life can help people with autism navigate social situations such as visiting a coffee shop, going to the cinema or even attending a job interview.

A further quote from the article informs us :

“There is a growing evidence-base that suggests many people on the autism spectrum find interaction with technology easy and, in some cases, more natural than interacting with people. There is some evidence to suggest that games such as Minecraft™ and virtual worlds such as Second Life™ (which have been designed for the general public) have great potential to help someone on the spectrum practice and develop social skills; building their confidence in virtual simulations without the fear of real-life consequences.

This sounds positive and seems to fit in with other reports of the benefits of virtual worlds when it comes to health, support and encouraging people to participate in something new.

However the HMD angle adds something new to the research, as Dr Newbutt explains :

The research team looked at willingness of people with autism to wear the device, the extent to which people using the devise experienced a sense of presence and immersion during the ‘experiences’ and also to find out if wearing a device caused anxiety. In each experiment the outcomes were positive and provided some new data to continue the evidence-base in this field.

Dr Newbutt said: “Initial findings indicate that acceptance of wearing a HMD was positive and negative effects such as dizziness or sickness, sometimes associated with HMD use, was reported as low by the autism group. We worked with a group of adults ranging from 17-52 and so feel the data is representative of a wide age group.”

The team at UWE will next try to make the leap of transferring the positive virtual experiences, to the physical world. A National Institute of Health grant application is being made.

This sort of research is extremely interesting to me and it’s good to read of some of the results. Plenty of people don’t realise that there are positive benefits of virtual worlds and virtual reality because stories such as this aren’t widely reported. That goes for a lot of research by Universities of course, not just their work with virtual worlds.

UWE have a presence in Second Life.

SLURL to UWE : http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Innovation%20at%20UWE/40/161/27/