الملخص الإنجليزي
Autism Spectrum Disorder is "a developmental disorder characterized by impaired
social interaction and communication as well as repetitive behaviors and restricted
interests". According to Zander (2004), autistic children mainly struggle with social
engagement, so they typically find it difficult to maintain eye contact, use body language,
and modulate their facial expressions or voice (Ramachandiran et al., 2015). Therefore,
helping children of this category to integrate and engage in social activities is an urgent
need for workers in the field of special education in general and specifically for those who
work with children with autism. This study investigated the usability of a semi-immersive
VR program in enhancing autistic students' social interaction skills and their ability to
transfer and generalize those skills to their real-life activities. The skills covered in this
research were verbal and non-verbal social interaction skills.
This qualitative case study research design used thematic analysis to deal with the
collected data to answer the research questions. The data was collected through semi structured interviews, surveys, and an observation checklist. The themes were determined
according to their value in answering the research questions.
The study's findings reflected a positive attitude from caregivers and parents
towards using the VR program. The high level of satisfaction with the VR program's
ability to enhance social interaction skills was clearly shown from the analysis of the
qualitative data collected from the study instruments based on the caregivers' and parents'
perspectives.
The results revealed that autistic students could more obviously transfer/generalize
the non-verbal interaction skills they learned in the VR program sessions than verbal
social interaction skills within their daily activities. The results also reported a strong
psychological impact of the VR program on students as they showed more relaxation and
motivation during and after the implementation. With the enormous number of
technological learning applications worldwide, this category of students deserves to
benefit from such technological advancements. Finally, the study presented some
implications, recommendations, and suggestions for future research.
