Virtual Reality Training of Safety and Social Communication Skills in Children with Autism: An Examination of Acceptability, Usability, and Generalization
VR plus prompts and reinforcement safely taught safety and social skills to three autistic kids who generalized the skills and enjoyed the sessions.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Gayle et al. (2025) put three autistic children inside a VR headset. The kids practiced crossing streets and starting chats with peers.
Each VR scene gave prompts and praise. After the headset came off, staff tested if the kids still used the skills at school and in the park.
What they found
All three children learned the safety and social steps. They kept the skills two weeks later and used them with new adults and new places.
Parents and teachers gave the VR program high marks. The kids smiled and asked for more headset time.
How this fits with other research
The result lines up with Whaling et al. (2025). That team also used VR with autistic kids and saw big drops in aggression after only eight sessions.
Celik et al. (2025) taught chemical safety without headsets. Their Cool-vs-Not-Cool method worked in under a dozen lessons, same age group, same strong maintenance.
Mortaş Kum et al. (2025) used short father-made videos and hit 100 % correct avoidance. VR gave the same end point, just through a screen instead of a phone.
Kurt et al. (2019) did the job with paper social stories. All three low-tech studies passed the test, so the new VR paper extends the toolbox rather than replaces it.
Why it matters
You now have four ways to teach safety: stories, videos, in-vivo drills, or VR. Pick VR when space is tight, traffic is risky, or a kid loves games. Swap to video or stories if tech fails. The skill still sticks.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can struggle to acquire social, communication, and safety skills. Many of these skills can be targeted in individualized behavior analytic instruction. However, some skills can be challenging to teach given the difficulties associated with reconstructing a real-world scenario within a learning session. Virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a promising technology that can help people with ASD practice these types of skills in an immersive environment. VR is an emerging technology, and more research is needed to determine its efficacy as well as its impact on variables such as client indices of happiness and social validity. In this study, we successfully taught three children with ASD three different skills using a VR treatment package that consisted of VR, prompts, and reinforcement. Prior to teaching these skills, we included a cooperation phase with the intent to increase acceptance of VR equipment as needed. We found that each of the three participants accepted the equipment and VR sessions without the need for additional training. In all cases, the skills the participants acquired in the VR platform were maintained and generalized to the natural environment. Participants demonstrated indices of happiness when engaged with the VR software and parents and clinical staff ranked the VR software positively. Results are discussed in terms of the use of the VR treatment package in intervention and future research for similar technologies.
Behavior Analysis in Practice, 2025 · doi:10.1007/s40617-024-00968-4