Exploring the Application of Virtual Reality (VR) Technology in Early Intervention for Social Skills Development in Children with Autism

The current state of education and intervention of children with autism is still faced with numerous challenges but the innovations made by virtual reality technology have created opportunities of solving such problems. The research explores the application of virtual reality (VR) during initial-stage training of social skills in autistic children and presents an optimization plan that will enhance the outcomes of interventions by enhancing the virtual visual environment. This strategy was subsequently evaluated on its feasibility based on a controlled experiment using statistical calculations such as chi-square test, independent-samples t-test, and repeated-measures ANOVA. The results revealed that the autistics had a higher score in four visual scenes after donning the VR headsets. The immersion levels of these scenes were placed in order of ranking, the highest to the lowest as colorful landscape gallery, colorful entertainment space, animal identification wall, and colorful animal weathervane with respective scores of 45.7, 45.2, 43.9 and 39.5 respectively. In all the four dimensions of social skills, namely social tendency, social cognition, social communication and self-regulation, the post-test performances of the experimental group who underwent VR-based intervention were significantly higher than the performances of the control group who received the intervention through conventional methods. The research widens the outlooks and practical solutions to social-skills intervention of autistic children in integrated educational environments.