Could a virtual buddy be your autistic child’s new best friend?
Using ‘virtual peers’ – animated life-sized children that simulate the behaviors and conversation of typically developing children – Northwestern University researchers are developing interventions designed to prepare children with autism for interactions with real-life children.
Justine Cassell, director of Northwestern’s Center for Technology and Social Behavior, recently presented a preliminary study on the work at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. “Children with high-functioning autism may be able to give you a lecture on a topic of great interest to them but they can’t carry on a ‘contingent’ – or two-way – conversation,” says Cassell. She and researcher Andrea Tartaro collected data from six children with high-functioning autism aged 7 to 11 as they engaged in play during an hour-long session with a real-life child, and with a virtual peer named Sam.
Learning the rules of social behavior is major challenge for children with autism – practicing beforehand with a virtual friend may help them perfect those skills for real-world interaction with other kids
In an analysis of those interactions, they found that children with autism produced more and more contingent sentences when they spoke with the virtual peer, while their sentences did not become increasingly contingent when they were paired with the real-life children. “Certainly we’re not saying that virtual peers make the best playmates for children with autism,” says Tartaro. “The overall goal is for the children with autism to generalize the skills they learn in practice sessions with virtual peers to meaningful interactions with real-world children.”
Nor are Northwestern researchers saying they can teach ‘contingency’ – appropriate back and forth conversation – in a single session. But their findings hold promise that virtual peers can be useful in helping children with autism develop communication and social skills.
And virtual peers have some distinct advantages over real-life children when it comes to practicing social skills. For starters, children with autism often like technology. “It interacts to us,” said one child with autism upon first meeting a virtual peer. What’s more, says Cassell, virtual peers don’t get tired or impatient. “We can program their conversation to elicit socially-skilled behavior, and we can vary the way that they look and behave so children with autism are exposed to different kinds of behavior.”
Cassell and Tartaro’s study is part of larger efforts taking place in the Articulab, the Northwestern University laboratory where Cassell and colleagues explore how people communicate with and through technology. In the Articulab, Cassell, who was trained as a psychologist and linguist, and Tartaro are teaming up with psychologist Miri Arie to develop assessment and intervention procedures that they hope will give them a better understanding of peer behaviors of children with autism.
A major challenge for children with autism is learning the rules of social behavior that typically developing children seem to learn intuitively. “Although children’s play appears spontaneous and wild, it follows certain basic social rules,” says Arie. “We hope virtual peers like Sam will allow children with autism to practice the rules behind joining a game, holding a conversation and maintaining social interaction. Then they can apply their newly acquired skills to real-life situations.”
Recent research conducted at the University of Haifa found that children with autism improved their road safety skills after practicing with a unique virtual reality system. “Children with autism rarely have opportunities to experience or to learn to cope with day-to-day situations. Using virtual simulations such as the one used in this research enables them to acquire skills that will make it possible for them to become independent,” said Professors Josman and Weiss, from the Department of Occupational Therapy at the University of Haifa.
One of the main problems autistic children face in their quest for independence is their inability to learn how to safely cross the street. While acquiring this skill could greatly improve these children's independence, most of the methods for teaching street-crossing have been designed for use within the classroom, and they’ve been shown as insufficiently effective among autistic children.
The best way to teach children with autism skills is through repeated practice in natural settings, but the danger of learning to cross the street in a natural setting obviously prohibits this method. In the study, six autistic children, ages 7-12, spent one month learning how to cross virtual streets, to wait for the virtual light at the crosswalk to change and to look left and right for virtual cars, using a simulation. In order to see if the children were able to transfer the skills they’d mastered in a virtual environment to the real world a local practice area with a street and crosswalk, complete with traffic signals, was used.
The children's ability to cross the street safely was tested in this area evaluating, for example, whether they stopped to wait on the sidewalk or waited for a green light before crossing. The children were brought to the practice area before and after their virtual learning. Here too, the children exhibited an improvement in their skills, following the training on the virtual street, with three of the children showing considerable improvement.
“Previous studies have shown that autistic children respond well to computer learning. In this research we learned that their intelligence level or severity of their autism doesn't affect their ability to understand the system and therefore this is an important way to improve their cognitive and social abilities,” summarized Josman and Weiss.