Virtual social environment for preschoolers with autism preliminary data

ABSTRACT Preliminary results are presented of a feasibility study, still in progress, of a virtual social environment designed to stimulate the social attention of pre-school-aged children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The system uses eye-tracking and provides gaze-contingent rewards of clips from preferred videos. Of six children reported on here, most find the experimental setting appealing, and the rewards compelling; they voluntarily engage with it across numerous sessions, and demonstrate learning, with large inter-individual differences in rate of progress. Implications are discussed for the pilot study to follow