A Rehabilitation Therapy for Autism Spectrum Disorder Using Virtual Reality

Virtual reality (VR) is a technology that simulates 3D image or environment which allows user to interact with a real or virtual environment. Using VR we can artificially create sensory experience such as sight, touch, hearing, and smell. The immersive environment can be like the real world in order to create a lifelike experience. It can be created using head mounted display, Projection, Monitors, Haptic devices, etc. Its applications widen its wings to various fields such as Education, Medicine, Military, Aerospace, etc. Autism Spectrum Disorder is a neuro-developmental disorder that highly affects normal people’s peace of mind. The symptoms include lack of attention, interaction, social behaviors and so on. To overcome these, we propose a virtual environment based therapy to enhance the social skills, emotions and attention of the Autism child. The virtual environment includes various levels. First level focuses on attention grasping using color lights and sounds. Second Level focuses on increasing social interactions touching a ball, throwing it and bursting same color balloons, etc. Third Level focuses on decision making. The proposed virtual reality therapy produces positive results over repetition and it also notices at what stage the autism kids become panic, frustrated and enthusiastic.