Physiologically-Adapted Virtual Reality Experiences for Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

该项目将促进沙夫茨伯里和多伦多大学/荷兰布洛维尤儿童康复医院之间的新合作，为自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童设计虚拟现实体验。许多患有ASD的儿童难以应对新的情况和环境，这可能会导致焦虑和错过教育和有意义参与的机会。为了帮助孩子科普这些转变，沙夫茨伯里正在开发一种虚拟现实体验，让孩子们在实际体验之前安全地探索新的环境。虚拟环境的难度水平将以渐进和临床意义的方式进行调整，以使儿童对多个VR会话中的特定焦虑触发因素不敏感。沙夫茨伯里将与多伦多大学/荷兰布洛维尤儿童康复中心的研究人员合作，开发指导这一调整过程的系统。具体来说，我们建议使用生理信号来识别和调整虚拟环境中导致儿童痛苦的特征（例如，噪音水平、颜色、各种视觉细节）。这将为每个孩子带来个性化的体验，解决他们独特的挑战。我们将利用我们共同的兴趣和专业知识，提高沙夫茨伯里系统对ASD儿童的可用性和有效性。该项目产生的方法和算法将在系统测试阶段和未来的商业部署阶段直接集成到积极分心娱乐系统软件中。

This project will catalyze a new collaboration between Shaftesbury and the University of Toronto/Holland Bloorview KidsRehabilitation Hospital to design a virtual reality experience for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Many children withASD have difficulty coping with new situations and settings and this can cause anxiety and missed opportunities for education andmeaningful participation. To help children cope with these transitions, Shaftesbury is developing a virtual reality experience forchildren to virtually and safely explore new settings before the actual experience. The difficulty level of the virtual environment willbe adjusted in a gradual and clinically-meaningful way to desensitize the child to particular anxiety-provoking triggers over multipleVR sessions. Shaftesbury will partner with researchers at the University of Toronto/Holland Bloorview Kids Rehab to develop asystem to guide this adjustment process. Specifically, we propose to use physiological signal to identify and adjust features of thevirtual environment that cause distress for children (e.g., noise levels, colors, various visual details). This will lead to apersonalized experience for each child that addresses their unique challenges. We will leverage our shared interests and expertiseto enhance the usability and effectiveness of Shaftesburys system for children with ASD. The method and algorithms generatedfrom this project will be directly integrated into the Positive Distraction Entertainment System software during the system testphase and in a future phase of the commercial deployment.