Extended Reality Guidelines for Supporting Autism Interventions Based on Stakeholders' Needs.
Let autistic youth and their allies co-design every part of VR interview training.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Bauer et al. (2023) asked people who care about autism employment what they need from virtual reality job-interview training. They talked to transition-age youth with autism, parents, job coaches, and VR designers.
The team used these conversations to tweak an existing VR program called VR-JIT. They changed scenes, added prompts, and slowed the pace so it felt safe and useful for autistic learners.
What they found
The paper is a recipe, not a scoreboard. It lists every change the group made, like letting users pick an avatar that looks like them and adding a quiet room to practice deep breathing before the mock interview.
No numbers are given. The value is the step-by-step guide for anyone who wants to copy the process in their own town.
How this fits with other research
Bogenschutz et al. (2024) extends this work. They built a full strengths-based VR design checklist. Where Valentin shows how to fix one program with stakeholder help, Matthew gives you a menu of visual strengths and instant rewards you can bake into any VR lesson.
Garrison et al. (2025) paints the bigger picture. Their interviews show that autistic job seekers who go it alone rarely find or use helpful tech. Valentin’s community-driven VR-JIT is one way to close that gap.
Hedley et al. (2018) is a predecessor. They first recorded that autistic adults need clear workplace rules and coworker allies. Valentin turns those old wishes into VR practice scenes, letting users rehearse asking for accommodations before the real thing.
Why it matters
You do not need fancy equipment to use this paper. Run a one-hour Zoom focus group with your learners and their families. Ask what feels hard about interviews. Then pick one VR tweak—maybe a slower-speaking avatar or a sensory break room—and add it to your next session. Repeat each month. Your program grows with your clients, not the other way around.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Virtual Reality Job-Interview Training (VR-JIT) is an efficacious Internet-based intervention for adults with severe mental illness (SMI). Evaluations of VR-JIT have shown improved interview skill and access to employment in several cohorts of adults with SMI and with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). VR-JIT trains participants how to fill out job applications and handle job interviews through e-learning content and applied practice. Trainees receive feedback through in-the-moment nonverbal cues, critiques, and recommendations for improving performance. Our study sought to adapt VR-JIT for transition-age youth with ASD (TAY-ASD). METHODS: We recruited TAY-ASD and adult stakeholders from public and charter schools, transition programs, and community service providers. Participants provided feedback on VR-JIT to enhance its applicability to TAY-ASD. We used community-engaged methods to process and analyze data from TAY-ASD and stakeholders, presented their quantitative and qualitative responses to community and scientific advisory boards for review and recommendations, and adapted the intervention design and content. RESULTS: Our adaptations included adding diversity (gender; race/ethnicity) to the virtual hiring manager; shortening the interview by reducing response options; increasing social storytelling to enhance engagement with VR-JIT core components; adding employment opportunities more relevant to younger workers; reducing the reading level; and making the e-learning content more accessible by adding bullet points, voiceover, and imagery/video; and adding new learning goals. CONCLUSIONS: This study presents a rigorous and innovative community-engaged methodology for adapting VR-JIT to meet the needs of TAY-ASD. We review our engagement with TAY-ASD and stakeholders, and discuss the standardized coding scheme we used to adapt VR-JIT and the usefulness and limitations of employing this methodology in adapting other behavioral interventions.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2023 · doi:10.1007/s10803-014-2333-1