HCC: Small: ProSocial: A 360-Degrees Video-based Virtual Reality Game Strengthening Social-emotional Skills with Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder

患有发育障碍的人通常在社交情感技能方面存在缺陷，包括识别和管理情绪以及保持对话，这些对教育、工作和生活的成功至关重要。该项目的总体目标是采用参与式设计方法来了解教育和提高高功能发育障碍个体的社交情感技能的方法，例如自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）患者。该项目还旨在与人类演员和相关利益相关者共同设计360度基于视频的虚拟现实环境，旨在为这些个人提供现实和实用的学习环境，从而促进技能从虚拟环境转移到他们经常遇到的现实生活场景。共同设计过程将包括有发育障碍的个人及其家人和专业护理人员。虚拟环境的目标是提供有效的社交情感技能培训，而无需行为专家的支持。虽然该项目侧重于有发育障碍的个人，但项目研究结果可以用于整个社会的各种行为和社交技能培训，基于：1)经验教训和参与式设计方法，用于教学和增强社交情感技能；2)虚拟环境描绘了大多数成年人日常互动中常见的场景。该项目也为计算机科学、游戏设计、人机交互和心理学等多学科教育提供了极好的机会。该项目的目标是采用参与式设计方法来了解教育和提高自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）等高功能发育障碍个体的社交情感技能的方法。设计需求的收集方法包括与有发育障碍的成年人及其家庭成员、行为专家、语言病理学家、职业和社区支持提供者以及心理学家进行访谈，并辅以角色扮演研讨会，其中包括使用旅程地图和进展地图技术分析的常见职业和社会互动。两种学习理论：应用行为分析（ABA）和认知行为治疗（CBT），构成了项目的基础，并为虚拟现实环境的设计提供了信息。从方法论的角度来看，社会和科学界可以从这个项目中学习如何结合和修改现有的理论来帮助有发育障碍的成年人，比如ABA和CBT，可以用来促进这些成年人在“安全”（虚拟）环境中的社会情感技能训练。该项目的另一个重要方面是对参与者进行纵向研究，交替进行基于虚拟现实和基于角色扮演的讲习班培训。这项创新和全面的纵向研究将有助于提供关键的见解，以了解：(a)在虚拟环境中学习的技能是否可以转移到现实世界中；（二）基于虚拟现实的培训如何/是否有助言语语言病理学家等护理人员更好地照顾发育障碍人士。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

People with developmental disabilities often suffer from deficits in social-emotional skills, including recognizing and managing emotions and maintaining conversations, that are crucial for education, work, and life successes. The overarching goal of the project is to employ participatory design methods to understand the methods for teaching and enhancing social-emotional skills of high-functioning individuals with developmental disabilities, such as those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). This project also aims to co-design 360-degree video-based Virtual Reality environments with human actors with relevant stakeholders aimed at providing a realistic and practical learning environment for these individuals, thereby promoting transfer of skills from the virtual environment to real life scenarios they regularly encounter. The co-design process will include individuals with developmental disabilities and their families and professional caregivers. The goal of the virtual environments is to provide effective social-emotional skill training with minimal to no support from behavioral specialists. While the project focuses on individuals with developmental disabilities, the project research results can be used for society at large for a variety of behavioral and social skills training based on: 1) the lessons learned and the methods of participatory design for teaching and enhancing social-emotional skills and 2) the virtual environments depicting scenarios that are common in day-to-day interactions for most adults. The project also provides excellent opportunities for multidisciplinary education involving computer science, game design, human-computer interactions, and psychology.The project’s goal is to employ participatory design methods to understand the methods for teaching and enhancing social-emotional skills of high-functioning individuals with developmental disabilities such as those with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The design requirement gathering methods include interviews with adults with developmental disabilities their family members, behavioral specialists, speech language pathologists, vocational and community support providers and psychologists, complemented with role-playing workshops involving common vocational and social interactions that are analyzed using Journey Mapping and Progression Mapping techniques. Two learning theories: Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), form the foundation of the project and inform the design of the Virtual Reality environments. From methodological point of view, society and scientific communities can learn from this project how the combination and modification of existing theories for assisting adults with developmental disabilities, such as ABA and CBT, may be used to promote social-emotional skill training for these adults in “safe” (virtual) environments. Another significant aspect of the project is the longitudinal study on the participants with alternating VR-based and role-playing workshop-based training. This innovative and comprehensive longitudinal study will help provide critical insights to understand: (a) whether the skills learned in virtual environments transfer to real-world scenarios; (b) how/whether VR-based training helps caregivers such as Speech Language Pathologists (SLPs) to work better with people with developmental disorders.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.