A Design Framework of Virtual Reality Enabled Experiential Learning for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Experiential learning is one of the most widely applied learning theories for virtual reality enabled learning, because virtual reality environment, especially immersive virtual reality environment, allows learners to actively experiment and reflectively observe in a safe and authentic environment. Our previous studies have shown that experiential learning could also be applied within a virtual reality learning environment for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in various learning domains. However, there is a lack of in-depth discussion on how to systematically design, engineer and evaluate virtual reality enabled experiential learning activities for children with ASD and other complications (e.g., anxiety disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), etc.). In this paper, we share our experience on applying experiential learning theory on the design of social competence learning in the immersive virtual reality environment for the children ASD, in order to address two fundamental questions. First, how different immersive virtual reality environments, such as the CAVE and head-mounted displays, affect the design of the virtual reality learning scenarios. Second, how the virtual reality learning contents can be designed to facilitate experiential learning in an immersive virtual reality environment for the ASD population. Our small-scale study shows that children with ASD often need facilitation during experiential learning in the immersive virtual reality environment and our design of providing in-VR facilitation can meet their learning needs.