Safety and Feasibility of an Immersive Virtual Reality Intervention Program for Teaching Police Interaction Skills to Adolescents and Adults with Autism.
Immersive VR is safe and feasible for teaching police-interaction skills to verbally fluent teens and adults with autism.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team tested a VR headset program that teaches teens and adults with autism how to talk to police.
Twenty-three verbally fluent clients, tried three 45-minute VR sessions.
Each session let them practice staying calm, showing ID, and answering questions during a traffic stop.
What they found
No one got sick or quit. All 23 users said the headset was easy to use and fun.
They rated the program 8 out of 10 for usefulness and 9 out of 10 for enjoyment.
The VR training was safe and doable for this group.
How this fits with other research
DPatton et al. (2020) used the same VR setup to teach street-crossing to three kids with autism. Both studies show VR works across ages and skills.
Bitsika et al. (2020) and Green et al. (2020) found autistic adults feel unsafe with police. This VR program answers their call for better training.
Ethridge et al. (2020) trained officers to understand autism. The new study trains autistic people to understand officers. Together they cover both sides of the same street stop.
Waldron et al. (2023) reviewed all police-autism trainings and found only five small studies. This VR program adds fresh data to a tiny field.
Why it matters
You can now offer a safe, low-stress way for teens and adults with autism to practice police encounters. No real sirens. No real risk. Just three short sessions that clients actually enjoy.
Get CEUs on This Topic — Free
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ on-demand CEUs including ethics, supervision, and clinical topics like this one. Plus a new live CEU every Wednesday.
Book a 45-minute VR demo and run one mock traffic-stop scenario with your highest-functioning client.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Low-cost, wireless immersive virtual reality (VR) holds significant promise as a flexible and scalable intervention tool to help individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) learn and develop critical practical life skills, including interacting safely and effectively with police officers. Previous research suggests that VR is a motivating intervention platform, but many individuals with ASD also exhibit anxiety and sensory sensitivities which might make it difficult to tolerate VR experiences. Here, we describe the results of a relatively large-scale, National Institutes of Health-funded systematic examination of the safety, feasibility, and usability of an immersive VR training program in adolescents and adults with ASD, aged 12 and older. Sixty verbally fluent individuals with no personal or immediate family history of seizures or migraines participated in either one (n = 30) or three 45-min (n = 30) VR sessions using a lightweight wireless headset, and were monitored for side effects. Participants also reported on system usability, enjoyment, and willingness to engage in further VR sessions. Results confirm that immersive VR is safe, feasible, and highly usable for verbally fluent adolescents and adults with ASD. LAY SUMMARY: Immersive virtual reality (VR) holds promise as a means to provide social skills interventions for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but it is unclear whether associated anxiety and sensory symptoms might limit feasibility. Here, we report data that indicate that immersive VR is both safe and feasible for use in verbally fluent adolescents and adults with ASD, for up to three 45-min sessions. Autism Res 2020, 13: 1418-1424. © 2020 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2020 · doi:10.1002/aur.2352