Virtual classroom for assessing gaze and distractor inhibition in children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) : An initial investigation for classroom performance
アイテムタイプ
紀要論文 / Departmental Bulletin Paper
言語
日本語
キーワード
Virtual reality, school refusal, neurodevelopmental disorder, sensory modulation disorder, assessment
Objective: Virtual reality (VR) has demonstrated the potential to become a neuropsychological assessment modality for children with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDs). VR may be well suited for evaluating children suspected of having autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and attention deficit/hyperactive disorder (ADHD). This study was conducted to explore the feasibility of VR for assessing atypical gaze and inhibition using sensory distractors. Methods: School-aged children were assigned to the NDs group (n=7) or control group (n=7), respectively. A virtual classroom was designed to evaluate their reactions to distracting events, including multiple noises, an object falling and moving objects. The direction and the time duration of the gaze were measured and calculated every fifteen seconds. A performance test instructed by a virtual teacher was also conducted. Results: The NDs group had a significantly longer gaze duration on the virtual teacher during 30-45 seconds of the VR classroom event (p<.05), while a control group seemed to gaze at notice and some other items when artificial noises came out. During that 15 seconds, the NDs group’s gaze duration time on teacher increased more, and the one on noise direction decreased more than immediately before 15 seconds. Although the NDs group tended to make a wrong answer at the fourth question that needed a complicated cognitive process, the difference in the correct answer ratios was not significant. Discussion: These results validated the potential of a VR environment to evaluate the difference of gaze and inhibition between school-aged children with NDs and typically developed children. Moreover, we proposed assessing hyperfocus and the central coherence deficit among children with NDs through our developed performance test. Future research is necessary to investigate the quantitative validity of the VR environment used in this study to differentiate the clinical levels of gaze characteristics that lead to deficits in learning.
発達障害児の学校生活適応に向けたVirtual Reality(VR)を用いた評価方法の検討
MH0018_055-062.pdf
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