Multiuser Digital Platform to Promote Interaction Skill in Individuals With Autism

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) face milestones in understanding other's preferences and intentions that in turn affect their reciprocity and interaction skills during a collaborative partnership. Investigators are advocating the use of digital-medium-based multiuser platforms to encourage learning of collaborative interaction skills among these children. Although currently available platforms encourage interaction, these do not consider aspects, e.g., anticipating and understanding the partner's preference (or intentions) along with spontaneous reciprocation through turn-taking, important for nurturing effective interaction. In this article, we have developed a multiuser virtual-reality-based interaction skill learning platform (M-VISP) in which the users can interact with each other through turn-taking using the digital platform. Successful execution of the task (quantified in terms of performance) needs them to understand each other's preferences before reciprocating. A usability study was designed in which individuals with ASD (n = 18) and typical development (n = 18) volunteered. Results indicated that the multiuser interaction facility offered by M-VISP could quantify one's ability to understand the preference of a partner in terms of their performance in a task and the spontaneity with which one reciprocated. Additionally, we observed an improving trend in the ability to understand a partner's preference along with exhibiting spontaneity in reciprocation among individuals with ASD.