Collaborative Virtual Environment Technology for People With Autism
By Moore, David; Cheng, Yufang; McGrath, Paul; Powell, Norman J.; Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 231-243Publication Date: Winter 2005
Study conducted to evaluate the potential of a collaborative virtual environment (CVEs) for children with autism. The software system incorporates avatar representations for four emotions: (1) happy, (2) sad, (3) angry, and (4) frightened. The CVE system allows the user to work in one of three stages in any order. The first stage features avatar representation alone, while the participant is asked to select the emotion being depicted from a list. Another activity in the first stage tells the child that an emotion is being felt, while he or she must choose from a list of avatars. The second stage asks the participant to choose likely emotional reactions to different events, while the third stage gives the user an avatar representation of an emotion and is asked to select an event that could have caused this emotion. A total of 34 children from ages 7.8 to 16 participated in the study, which evaluated their potential to utilize the program. Over 90 percent of the participants were able to recognized emotions displayed by the avatars. The authors contend that these results indicate that CVEs are an effective assistive technology intervention for children with autism.
Published by: PRO-ED, Inc. (Website:http://www.proedinc.com)
Division on Developmental Disabilities (DDD) of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) (Web Site: http://www.dddcec.org )
