**2. A/VR technology's great breakthrough in a visual sensory experience**

With the intervention of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technology, these training problems have been improved, to varying degrees. Due to an autistic child's innate visual and learning advantages, A/VR technology

*How to Use the Advantages of AR and VR Technique to Integrate Special Visual Training… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94587*

provides users with a great breakthrough by providing a visual sensory experience [45]. This includes the most basic interactive game operation for complex multiperson perspective exchanges, self-reference imitations, and a variety of situation simulations [42, 43, 46].

### **2.1 Overview of AR and VR technology and their benefits and differences**

AR technology is an interactive display platform that superimposes virtual objects in a real environment. Using the computer, it generates 3D image display, sound, text and animation effects to enhance the user's visual sensory experience. Therefore, it is good for pretend-play and symbolic play games to use AR technology, because they can augment the virtual 3D materials by overlaying them on the real objects to make it look like another thing. For example, by using AR technology, we can add the 3D model or animation overlay to real matchboxes to symbolize cars (**Figure 1**). By using the AR app, the matchboxes will look like the shape of a car on the screen, which can help autistic children to pretend and imagine that the matchboxes are cars. This concept can be easily understood from Bai's (2014) research article [47].

Another VR technology provides a more immersive and realistic environment in which people can experience the environment. VR provides visual images on the media to help children with autism to have an in-depth experience, to master their imagination, and to experience visual sensory stimulation. Thus, VR technology has another benefit in that it lets the children with autism become immersed in another world and to empathize with another person's perspectives, feelings and thoughts. Therefore, the goals of AR and VR technology can be very different in the way that it presents the virtual environment, by either enhancing or changing the perceptual world.

The biggest difference between AR and VR is that AR integrates with real objects (**Table 1**), while VR is completely immersed in a virtual environment. AR presents an interaction with the objects in the actual field, such as the social skills training

#### **Figure 1.**

*AR technology is used to help children with autism to elicit pretend-play and imagination skills, such as imagining a square matchbox as a car. The original picture was produced and re-drawn from Bai [47].*

and pretend-game skills [41] to guide autistic children to figure out and understand "social relations" and "social behavior cognition". Among them, empathy is the ability to understand and comprehend the emotions and behavior of another person. This skill, which can be trained, facilitates interpersonal relationships.

However, children with autism are reluctant to participate in the situation guidance of intervention training, when they cannot see the scene, or anything to help them understand the situation or game [42]. For example, starting from general social training, game intervention activities, such as role-playing or perspectivetaking, are training methods that are used for autistic children to perceive the feelings of other people and to generate empathy. However, due to their inherent social defects and weak imagination, they cannot be effectively implemented, which leads to the exclusion of autistic children from teaching and training, making

In addition, the ability of role play or transposing their thinking is a very difficult skill for autistic children, and they cannot understand their social relationship with others, from the perspective of the others, by using empathy or their imagination [43]. Moreover, they are often unable to identify the non-verbal social cues in different complex social situations. It is difficult to effectively teach autistic children to understand special and complex social situations, or to develop further empathy. It is a complicated and abstract social structure for them, which makes it

For children with autism, the key point of a good social intervention strategy is to provide powerful visual media in this training game, to attract their attention and maintain their interest [17]. Compared with oral expression, or the written communication performance, image information is one of the best ways of learning. Temple Grandin, who is one of the most well-known and accomplished adults with autism [44], once described in his work that all the words and dialogs presented before the eyes of autistic patients are like pictures, which represents the unique

However, past research has pointed out that the traditional way of matching a picture with a text is not attractive to autistic children, and the effect is not significant [21]. The reason for this phenomenon is that traditional teaching strategies lack interaction and a clear teaching framework, and it is difficult for them to present or demonstrate an appropriate interactive situation. For example, traditional storybook combines social storytelling methods for teaching; however, storybooks can only provide fragments of situational pictures. (Situational pictures, like the normal photographic capture of a real scene, which we call a "montage" or a "stop motion video", include some people's interactions and social reciprocity behavior in a specific place. This material is used to help the therapist to teach the children and to indicate their roles and their interaction with it). However, it is difficult to show continuous details from situational pictures, and traditional storybooks lack an interactive mechanism, and many details can only be imagined,

**2. A/VR technology's great breakthrough in a visual sensory experience**

With the intervention of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) technology, these training problems have been improved, to varying degrees. Due to an autistic child's innate visual and learning advantages, A/VR technology

challenging for them to acquire such concepts and social skills [17, 18].

**1.6 Key factors of good social intervention training strategy**

visual learning approach and learning ability of autistic patients.

which causes autistic children to get bored or to lose interest.

**34**

it even more difficult to attain effective training results [43].

*Types of Nonverbal Communication*


situations for autistic children to speculate about their current immersion feelings [43, 48], and the 3D modeling technique in AR technology also allows them to practice social reciprocity with specific characters through pretend-playing and role-playing [43]. In addition, AR technology can help autistic children to express themselves and watch their social status with others by playing pretend and symbolic games and seeing things from the perspective of different people [49]. A/VR technology has greatly broken through the traditional training framework, but at the same time, it has extended the training on the basis of the existing teaching strategies and theories, giving it a certain theoretical basis for development, as well

*How to Use the Advantages of AR and VR Technique to Integrate Special Visual Training…*

**2.3 AR technology solves the problem of a weak imagination in children**

specific objects, space environments, or image information, its application in teaching has been effective [51]. For autistic children, AR technology can help to overcome their weak imaginations, as it is capable of presenting visual information beyond words or pictures [52]. Moreover, the superimposed information can make autistic children perform the operation and teaching application of disguise and symbolic games. Below are some special teaching and training cases to illustrate and

**2.4 AR technology can provide autistic children with a training situation by using the content of social games in disguise and symbolic play**

movements, including nodding, shaking hands, hugging, high-fives, and

In the process of learning how to interact and play with others, impersonation and symbolic games play an important role for normal children [53]. The children can try to figure out different situations and things and even have a tacit understanding between each other, by pretending to be in a game [54, 55]. For example, in the game of pretending to have a specific role or occupation, such as a doctor, nurse, or salesman, normal children can use the available items at hand as accessories, in the process of their diagnosis and treatment, or they can use the items on display in stores, such as using bananas as telephones [56], using matchboxes to symbolize cars (**Figure 1**), using sticks to symbolize a king's scepter, or using a bottle as a microphone. In general, normal children can achieve the operation of each other's games by defining different objects, formulating game rules and interactive methods, and even developing them into more complex game mechanisms. For example, children are often "playing house "or "playing grown-up" games (playing house, is a traditional children's game. It is a form of make-believe, where players take on the roles of a nuclear family). They are game forms that help children to understand each other's gestures and social interactions and to grasp metaphorical symbols. In the process of playing these games, they need to use a lot of imagination, to follow the rules of the game, and to have the ability to understand the concept of the symbolic form and the ability to guess the intention [37, 52]. These games not only retain specific symbols and rules, but they also integrate many different ways of interaction. In addition to the game, some more subtle interactive information helps children to learn and familiarize themselves with more complex social skills in the process of the game. These techniques can convey different information through oral or non-verbal communication and they can also involve social and emotional connections. People will use some conventional objects or gestures to replace the content of complex dialogs. For example, certain body

Because AR technology can add additional visual information onto the surface of

as a learning framework [50].

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94587*

analyze the follow-up research.

**with autism**

**37**

#### **Table 1.**

*The differences of AR and VR technology in social skills training for autism.*

that is used in pretend games or iconic games, while VR strengthens the experience of simulation and the environment of situational feelings, which means that they have different functions and characteristics in social training for autism. Therefore, we will show some examples in the following chapter, and explain how AR and VR technology are applied in the social skills training of autism.
