**3. How to enhance social interaction skills in children with autism by visualization**

## **3.1 How to help children with autism translate complex and abstract nonverbal social communication codes**

Non-verbal social communication ability covers a wide range of social cognitive levels and sensory ability integration, including judging the other party's emotional expressions, their body gestures, empathy, and the ability to pretend to play games and imagine things [59]. These non-verbal social cues convey the way people communicate and their ability to convey emotions [60]. For autistic children, such content needs to be visualized, or even structured, to achieve a better performance of social details and social connections. How to translate abstract and complex nonverbal social cues is a research topic that makes researchers curious, because nonverbal social communication often represents some symbolic social communication symbols and behavior performance, which are conveyed to others through body movements or facial illustrations that involve the relationship between physical and social communication symbols [21]. For example, when a man hands a red rose to a young woman, the series of hand and body movements and their facial expressions convey each other's behavior, intentions, social relationship, and even their emotional feelings [28] (**Figure 2**). The use of situational pictures can facilitate and develop a child's ability to adapt to social relationships and to understand the overall interactive situation described in this series of story plots, by repeated learning and guessing. However, these abstract non-verbal communication expressions appear to be difficult for autistic children to understand [61], as they are unable to deconstruct the information content and social communication codes conveyed by such non-verbal communication. They need to make an extra effort and give extra attention, in order to detect these different social context fragments and non-verbal social cues.

points out those autistic children often find it difficult to detect and perceive these key non-verbal social cues. However, traditional social training, whether by using video modeling [4, 53] or specific social story methods [36], did not have effective outcomes or help autistic children to deconstruct and understand the social cues in situational pictures. In such training, therapists or special education teachers guide autistic children to observe specific situational pictures or play the videos repeatedly, through which they gradually become familiar with the social details in the story. After multiple practices, autistic children can gradually grasp such social information and apply the information in their daily lives. This kind of teaching strategy is a very common approach in social training; however, it is considered to be a rather passive method and does not attract the interest of an autistic child, even with films or picture storybooks.

*When a man hands a red rose to a young woman, the series of hand and body movements and their facial expressions convey each other's behavior, intentions, social relationship, and even their emotional feelings [28].*

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

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

**3.3 How to help children with autism to master the key to visual guidance and**

stable visual interpretation, just like traditional social storytelling [18].

On the basis of our previous study [21] extracted non-verbal social cues from a series of dynamic life films and compiled them into a social storybook. Through the fixed visual structure of the storybook and the sequential page-by-page learning framework, autistic children can clearly grasp the visual pictures and clues of the occurrence of the social situations. A fixed and structured visual information deconstruction method, which researchers call Stop Motion Video (SMV), can guarantee a simultaneous and

Although the key frames are structural, they are quite fragmentary [28]. Such social storybooks lose most of the social context clues and story content. At the same time, static images do not easily attract the attention of autistic children and

**the contextual information behind it**

**Figure 2.**

**39**

#### **3.2 How to help autistic children deconstruct visual media and focus on specific non-verbal social communication codes**

As described in a previous study, attention is one of the key factors in social cognition and in the deconstruction of social communication codes [62]. The study *How to Use the Advantages of AR and VR Technique to Integrate Special Visual Training… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94587*

#### **Figure 2.**

shoulder-clapping, are used to express the participants' concern and interaction. Moreover, different body movements will naturally convey the distance and intimacy of their social relations. However, there is a certain degree of complexity that is required to implement such a social approach with autistic children, by using traditional teaching strategies. Because autistic children find it difficult to understand complex and abstract social communication codes, the symbolic concepts and

Therefore, this is an opportunity to use AR technology to help autistic children to understand and participate in pretend-games and try to use their imagine to decode the social signals, because pretend games usually require an imagination to figure out some state that does not exist on actual objects, for example, imagining a square matchbox as a car (**Figure 1**), or imagining some actions and processes in the game, such as using a toy car on the table to imagine a real car running on the road. In this way, AR technology can today superimpose the 3D model and animation of the car and overlap it on the square matchboxes, to let the matchboxes look like real cars. In this way, it can help autistic children to master the skills of pretend-play, by

**3. How to enhance social interaction skills in children with autism by**

**3.1 How to help children with autism translate complex and abstract non-**

detect these different social context fragments and non-verbal social cues.

**non-verbal social communication codes**

**38**

**3.2 How to help autistic children deconstruct visual media and focus on specific**

As described in a previous study, attention is one of the key factors in social cognition and in the deconstruction of social communication codes [62]. The study

Non-verbal social communication ability covers a wide range of social cognitive levels and sensory ability integration, including judging the other party's emotional expressions, their body gestures, empathy, and the ability to pretend to play games and imagine things [59]. These non-verbal social cues convey the way people communicate and their ability to convey emotions [60]. For autistic children, such content needs to be visualized, or even structured, to achieve a better performance of social details and social connections. How to translate abstract and complex nonverbal social cues is a research topic that makes researchers curious, because nonverbal social communication often represents some symbolic social communication symbols and behavior performance, which are conveyed to others through body movements or facial illustrations that involve the relationship between physical and social communication symbols [21]. For example, when a man hands a red rose to a young woman, the series of hand and body movements and their facial expressions convey each other's behavior, intentions, social relationship, and even their emotional feelings [28] (**Figure 2**). The use of situational pictures can facilitate and develop a child's ability to adapt to social relationships and to understand the overall interactive situation described in this series of story plots, by repeated learning and guessing. However, these abstract non-verbal communication expressions appear to be difficult for autistic children to understand [61], as they are unable to deconstruct the information content and social communication codes conveyed by such non-verbal communication. They need to make an extra effort and give extra attention, in order to

social cognition content need to be translated [57, 58].

using visual methods.

*Types of Nonverbal Communication*

**visualization**

**verbal social communication codes**

*When a man hands a red rose to a young woman, the series of hand and body movements and their facial expressions convey each other's behavior, intentions, social relationship, and even their emotional feelings [28].*

points out those autistic children often find it difficult to detect and perceive these key non-verbal social cues. However, traditional social training, whether by using video modeling [4, 53] or specific social story methods [36], did not have effective outcomes or help autistic children to deconstruct and understand the social cues in situational pictures. In such training, therapists or special education teachers guide autistic children to observe specific situational pictures or play the videos repeatedly, through which they gradually become familiar with the social details in the story. After multiple practices, autistic children can gradually grasp such social information and apply the information in their daily lives. This kind of teaching strategy is a very common approach in social training; however, it is considered to be a rather passive method and does not attract the interest of an autistic child, even with films or picture storybooks.

### **3.3 How to help children with autism to master the key to visual guidance and the contextual information behind it**

On the basis of our previous study [21] extracted non-verbal social cues from a series of dynamic life films and compiled them into a social storybook. Through the fixed visual structure of the storybook and the sequential page-by-page learning framework, autistic children can clearly grasp the visual pictures and clues of the occurrence of the social situations. A fixed and structured visual information deconstruction method, which researchers call Stop Motion Video (SMV), can guarantee a simultaneous and stable visual interpretation, just like traditional social storytelling [18].

Although the key frames are structural, they are quite fragmentary [28]. Such social storybooks lose most of the social context clues and story content. At the same time, static images do not easily attract the attention of autistic children and

encourage them to read. Therefore, by combining them with AR technology, researchers can use the key social context clues in social storybooks as visual primers, and they can also use the explicit learning framework and visual structure of social storybooks, to help autistic children deconstruct and master the specific non-verbal language in a series of complex social films. For example, the social interaction state, a handshake, a hug, or special eye contact, and the expressions of male and female protagonists in the film, are employed to guide autistic children to master the key events of the complete story by using a visual primer that is constructed on the fixed screen. The situational information that is guided by the back of the protagonist can then be played in a dynamic video and superimposed on the social storybook, for autistic children to refer to and read repeatedly, thus making up for the lack of information in social storybooks. At the same time, focusing on non-verbal social cues by using AR technology, successfully increases the attention and motivation of autistic children. The film that is triggered by AR technology promotes the opportunity and vision for autistic children to understand the more complex stimulation of social cues [21].

strategies, because the additional visual information given by AR can enhance an autistic child's attention and mastery of specific social cues [21]. At the same time, it also gives some abstract symbolic content that is different from any visual sensory interpretation, such as giving a visual perception of abstract symbolic content at the moment when the perceptual acousto-optic feedback of an event is triggered [37]; for example, when courage is acquired, AR systems provide animated responses for

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

**3.6 AR can help autistic children to comprehend the abstract and metaphorical**

We can understand the benefits of AR technology from different perspectives. For example, in metaphorical social relationships, it is difficult to explain to autistic children about the relationship between you, me, and him. We have always called them pronouns, which are a common part of speech, but they are the concepts that make children with autism most likely to encounter confusion. Autistic children often reverse their status of use, which may be one of the reasons why it is difficult

Moreover, it is not easy to explain the relationship between social intimacy and intimacy. Usually, when one teaches ordinary children about the differences between the concept of family members and their relatives (such as uncles and aunts) and even neighbors and friends, we can easily convey a distant relationship by using an oral description or some other explanations. However, autistic children find it difficult to grasp such a concept, because of their relationship with society; so they become obstacles in the transformation of the concept of communication. An oral description lacks a clear visual framework and image structure to help them understand. Therefore, it is necessary for autistic children to deconstruct different social concepts and situations by using visualization and images. One can use a Concept Map (CM) plus AR technology to deconstruct different social concepts and situations, by linking different role objects (**Figure 3**). Autistic children can then understand such social connections through visual aids. In addition to the social content that can be taught, AR provides auxiliary content, so that the visual interface on static images can be extended and generate more visual stimuli, which can subsequently attract

for them to change their role status or feel empathy for others.

autistic children to invest in more attention and observation [21, 49].

gies. However, in the process of a pretend-game, the dialog content, body movements, and the palm of the eyes are included. This becomes a very difficult task for autistic children, because their imagination is inherently weak, and they do not easily associate and interact with each other. The rigid thinking mode makes it difficult for them to understand each other's communication, as well as the real intention behind the words and the social meaning that they hope to convey.

**3.7 AR technology can be used to give new life to role-playing games**

Through the superposition of 3D animation and situational sound, AR technology can easily solve the problem of a weak imagination in autism. A therapist can

Through AR technology, we can give different visual interpretations to abstract social concepts. In the past, autistic children could only understand social content through role-playing and social stories. However, with the intervention of AR technology, some social content can be presented and interpreted in different ways, and can extend the sensory level given by static images or inanimate objects, such as teddy bears, dolls, or a doll in human form (**Figure 4**). The therapist uses these entity dolls to explain the situational dialog and emotional feelings between different characters to the autistic children, by using disguise and symbolic game strate-

children with autism.

**41**

**social relationships**

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

### **3.4 How to help autistic children master the relationship between non-verbal social communication messages and symbols**

Non-verbal social communication covers a wide range of levels, including the structural relationship between people and symbols. Different body movements that correspond to the extraction of different symbols, also endow the situational story with a specific social narrative framework and clues [63]. For example, a man with a bunch of flowers kneeling on one knee before a woman may represent a marriage proposal, while taking out a diamond ring represents a wedding ceremony. These social cues and symbols will be continuously expanded upon in the process of a child's growth, as a part of their acquired learning. Generally, children obtain more social experiences when interacting with adults, which help them to apply the non-verbal social communication information and signs, and to establish a connection between such information and signs [28].

As indicated by the playing-house game, children become familiar with the strategy of the disguise and the symbolic game, which leads them to deliberate on the situation and to feel during the process. However, these social information and symbols are full of metaphorical and social content for autistic children, who find it difficult to decipher the invisible and abstract social communication codes. Therefore, additional visual aids can help them. For example, the abstract concepts, such as honor, friendship, peer recognition, praise, or respect for others, could help them to understand some social implications and emotional components, and thus to eventually develop the ability to handle the mechanism of social interaction [37]. Generally, children can figure out these skills through symbolic and pretend-game strategies, such as giving a badge to represent honor, bowing to each other as a symbol of respect, offering a handshake as a symbol of friendship, giving high-fives for peer recognition, or giving a thumbs-up as a symbol of praise. Such content often appears in children's game stories. However, the question is whether such ways can trigger and motivate autistic children to devote more attention, and their imagination, to specific non-verbal social cues and to successfully link them to a symbolic ceremony.

#### **3.5 What are the benefits of AR on social skills training on children with autism?**

Nowadays, AR can play a very important role [37]. The relevant literature points out that it offers a significant breakthrough in the disguise and symbolic game

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

strategies, because the additional visual information given by AR can enhance an autistic child's attention and mastery of specific social cues [21]. At the same time, it also gives some abstract symbolic content that is different from any visual sensory interpretation, such as giving a visual perception of abstract symbolic content at the moment when the perceptual acousto-optic feedback of an event is triggered [37]; for example, when courage is acquired, AR systems provide animated responses for children with autism.

### **3.6 AR can help autistic children to comprehend the abstract and metaphorical social relationships**

We can understand the benefits of AR technology from different perspectives. For example, in metaphorical social relationships, it is difficult to explain to autistic children about the relationship between you, me, and him. We have always called them pronouns, which are a common part of speech, but they are the concepts that make children with autism most likely to encounter confusion. Autistic children often reverse their status of use, which may be one of the reasons why it is difficult for them to change their role status or feel empathy for others.

Moreover, it is not easy to explain the relationship between social intimacy and intimacy. Usually, when one teaches ordinary children about the differences between the concept of family members and their relatives (such as uncles and aunts) and even neighbors and friends, we can easily convey a distant relationship by using an oral description or some other explanations. However, autistic children find it difficult to grasp such a concept, because of their relationship with society; so they become obstacles in the transformation of the concept of communication. An oral description lacks a clear visual framework and image structure to help them understand. Therefore, it is necessary for autistic children to deconstruct different social concepts and situations by using visualization and images. One can use a Concept Map (CM) plus AR technology to deconstruct different social concepts and situations, by linking different role objects (**Figure 3**). Autistic children can then understand such social connections through visual aids. In addition to the social content that can be taught, AR provides auxiliary content, so that the visual interface on static images can be extended and generate more visual stimuli, which can subsequently attract autistic children to invest in more attention and observation [21, 49].

Through AR technology, we can give different visual interpretations to abstract social concepts. In the past, autistic children could only understand social content through role-playing and social stories. However, with the intervention of AR technology, some social content can be presented and interpreted in different ways, and can extend the sensory level given by static images or inanimate objects, such as teddy bears, dolls, or a doll in human form (**Figure 4**). The therapist uses these entity dolls to explain the situational dialog and emotional feelings between different characters to the autistic children, by using disguise and symbolic game strategies. However, in the process of a pretend-game, the dialog content, body movements, and the palm of the eyes are included. This becomes a very difficult task for autistic children, because their imagination is inherently weak, and they do not easily associate and interact with each other. The rigid thinking mode makes it difficult for them to understand each other's communication, as well as the real intention behind the words and the social meaning that they hope to convey.

#### **3.7 AR technology can be used to give new life to role-playing games**

Through the superposition of 3D animation and situational sound, AR technology can easily solve the problem of a weak imagination in autism. A therapist can

encourage them to read. Therefore, by combining them with AR technology, researchers can use the key social context clues in social storybooks as visual primers, and they can also use the explicit learning framework and visual structure of social storybooks, to help autistic children deconstruct and master the specific non-verbal language in a series of complex social films. For example, the social interaction state, a handshake, a hug, or special eye contact, and the expressions of male and female protagonists in the film, are employed to guide autistic children to

master the key events of the complete story by using a visual primer that is constructed on the fixed screen. The situational information that is guided by the back of the protagonist can then be played in a dynamic video and superimposed on the social storybook, for autistic children to refer to and read repeatedly, thus making up for the lack of information in social storybooks. At the same time, focusing on non-verbal social cues by using AR technology, successfully increases the attention and motivation of autistic children. The film that is triggered by AR technology promotes the opportunity and vision for autistic children to understand

**3.4 How to help autistic children master the relationship between non-verbal**

Non-verbal social communication covers a wide range of levels, including the structural relationship between people and symbols. Different body movements that correspond to the extraction of different symbols, also endow the situational story with a specific social narrative framework and clues [63]. For example, a man with a bunch of flowers kneeling on one knee before a woman may represent a marriage proposal, while taking out a diamond ring represents a wedding ceremony. These social cues and symbols will be continuously expanded upon in the process of a child's growth, as a part of their acquired learning. Generally, children obtain more social experiences when interacting with adults, which help them to apply the non-verbal social communication information and signs, and to establish

As indicated by the playing-house game, children become familiar with the strategy of the disguise and the symbolic game, which leads them to deliberate on the situation and to feel during the process. However, these social information and symbols are full of metaphorical and social content for autistic children, who find it difficult to decipher the invisible and abstract social communication codes. Therefore, additional visual aids can help them. For example, the abstract concepts, such as honor, friendship, peer recognition, praise, or respect for others, could help them to understand some social implications and emotional components, and thus to eventually develop the ability to handle the mechanism of social interaction [37]. Generally, children can figure out these skills through symbolic and pretend-game strategies, such as giving a badge to represent honor, bowing to each other as a symbol of respect, offering a handshake as a symbol of friendship, giving high-fives for peer recognition, or giving a thumbs-up as a symbol of praise. Such content often appears in children's game stories. However, the question is whether such ways can trigger and motivate autistic children to devote more attention, and their imagination, to specific non-verbal social cues and to successfully link them to a symbolic ceremony.

**3.5 What are the benefits of AR on social skills training on children with**

out that it offers a significant breakthrough in the disguise and symbolic game

Nowadays, AR can play a very important role [37]. The relevant literature points

the more complex stimulation of social cues [21].

*Types of Nonverbal Communication*

**social communication messages and symbols**

a connection between such information and signs [28].

**autism?**

**40**

#### **Figure 3.**

*A concept map plus AR technology provides additional visual aids to help autistic children to construct abstract concepts and enhance their learning motivation and attention [17].*

transpositional thinking and then be able to predict and adopt his/her behavior representation and social communication mode [67]. However, this ability is difficult to achieve in autistic children and it is closely related to non-verbal communication cues. In general, normal adults can understand the feelings and intentions of others through their facial expressions, body movements, voice intonation, and even some of their gestures and their eyes, which are all non-verbal communication clues that could transmit abundant social information. People can use them to perceive the emotions and intentions of others and to make further judgments. Through the accumulation of experience and learning, people's judgments thus

*Personification is when something non-human is given a human characteristic/personality. However, personification is sometimes given a broader definition. Therefore, in this section, we focus on enhancing the autistic person's empathy towards others and trying to think, feel, and understand the emotions of another person, from their perspective. The AR system will turn an inanimate object into a real creature.*

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

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

In the teaching strategy of the transposition thinking ability training for autistic children in the past, facial pictures [68], or asking autistic children to look in the mirror, was often used for repeated judgment training [69]. However, this method has not been effective, especially when autistic cases enter a real-life field, whereby such training is difficult to implement and the effect is not obvious. The researchers pointed out that it is necessary for autistic children to be proficient in this skill by using more flexible and authentic sensory stimuli. This also shows that it is difficult for autistic children to use simple images and integrate their creative imagination into a more profound on-the-spot experience, and such a perceptual environment can only be achieved in real life. However, some autistic children have a fear of the real environment, and the complexity of the information in the environment makes those with poor communication more afraid and likely to retreat, which means it cannot really achieve the purpose of training [70]. Therefore, transpositional thinking skills and empathy (also known as defects in the Theory of Mind (ToM) the ability to interpret another person's interests, intentions, and emotions) has

**3.9 Shortcomings of traditional transposition thinking training**

become more accurate and effective.

**Figure 4.**

**43**

easily make a lifeless doll appear to be alive (**Figure 4**). Through the man–machine interface and context design, the social interaction content can be successfully deduced [64]. In addition to increasing the motivation and attraction of autistic children in learning, the whole process also involves the sensory connection of entity interaction, which could help them to acquire this social concept. When autistic children play with the entity doll, they can link the social cognitive relationship between the senses and the body, which reinforces their understanding of a social relationship. In addition, AR technology gives a deeper feeling to the physical interaction and sensory manipulation required by the disguise game. From the perspective of the third person, the social interaction relationship between the disguised role and AR technology can become a more complete social training mode and make the social training of autistic children, from a visual sense, gradually push to the level of a psychological feeling. Next, the researchers will explain how to further use AR technology to transform the transposition thinking ability of autistic children and to trigger their inner ability to show empathy.

## **3.8 AR technology can help autistic children to transform and achieve transpositional thinking and empathy training**

Empathy is seen as the ability to perceive another person's emotions, intentions, and feelings [65]. In the growth process of ordinary children, it is an innate ability and can indirectly become a skill for social interaction between people [66]. If they have this ability, people will understand another person's feelings through

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

#### **Figure 4.**

easily make a lifeless doll appear to be alive (**Figure 4**). Through the man–machine interface and context design, the social interaction content can be successfully deduced [64]. In addition to increasing the motivation and attraction of autistic children in learning, the whole process also involves the sensory connection of entity interaction, which could help them to acquire this social concept. When autistic children play with the entity doll, they can link the social cognitive relationship between the senses and the body, which reinforces their understanding of a social relationship. In addition, AR technology gives a deeper feeling to the physical interaction and sensory manipulation required by the disguise game. From the perspective of the third person, the social interaction relationship between the disguised role and AR technology can become a more complete social training mode and make the social training of autistic children, from a visual sense, gradually push to the level of a psychological feeling. Next, the researchers will explain how to further use AR technology to transform the transposition thinking ability of autistic

*A concept map plus AR technology provides additional visual aids to help autistic children to construct abstract*

children and to trigger their inner ability to show empathy.

*concepts and enhance their learning motivation and attention [17].*

*Types of Nonverbal Communication*

**Figure 3.**

**42**

**transpositional thinking and empathy training**

**3.8 AR technology can help autistic children to transform and achieve**

have this ability, people will understand another person's feelings through

Empathy is seen as the ability to perceive another person's emotions, intentions, and feelings [65]. In the growth process of ordinary children, it is an innate ability and can indirectly become a skill for social interaction between people [66]. If they

*Personification is when something non-human is given a human characteristic/personality. However, personification is sometimes given a broader definition. Therefore, in this section, we focus on enhancing the autistic person's empathy towards others and trying to think, feel, and understand the emotions of another person, from their perspective. The AR system will turn an inanimate object into a real creature.*

transpositional thinking and then be able to predict and adopt his/her behavior representation and social communication mode [67]. However, this ability is difficult to achieve in autistic children and it is closely related to non-verbal communication cues. In general, normal adults can understand the feelings and intentions of others through their facial expressions, body movements, voice intonation, and even some of their gestures and their eyes, which are all non-verbal communication clues that could transmit abundant social information. People can use them to perceive the emotions and intentions of others and to make further judgments. Through the accumulation of experience and learning, people's judgments thus become more accurate and effective.

#### **3.9 Shortcomings of traditional transposition thinking training**

In the teaching strategy of the transposition thinking ability training for autistic children in the past, facial pictures [68], or asking autistic children to look in the mirror, was often used for repeated judgment training [69]. However, this method has not been effective, especially when autistic cases enter a real-life field, whereby such training is difficult to implement and the effect is not obvious. The researchers pointed out that it is necessary for autistic children to be proficient in this skill by using more flexible and authentic sensory stimuli. This also shows that it is difficult for autistic children to use simple images and integrate their creative imagination into a more profound on-the-spot experience, and such a perceptual environment can only be achieved in real life. However, some autistic children have a fear of the real environment, and the complexity of the information in the environment makes those with poor communication more afraid and likely to retreat, which means it cannot really achieve the purpose of training [70]. Therefore, transpositional thinking skills and empathy (also known as defects in the Theory of Mind (ToM) the ability to interpret another person's interests, intentions, and emotions) has

always been the focus of researchers in the training of autism [71]. However, there are many difficulties in the training and implementation of a person's transpositional thinking ability. The first difficulty to be faced is how to let autistic children figure out how to take on another role? It is very difficult for them to show their abilities, because they cannot understand why therapists ask them to show the emotions and feelings of another character, or even to pretend to be another character, because they have a weak imagination and rigid logical thinking [72]. This is a rather difficult task for autistic children to understand. These communication methods are not in line with their real identity, they are abstract, and cannot be interpreted through a visual mode. For autistic children, who understand things through vision, it is only when they can truly see, or feel, the social status of different roles that they can solve the current training problems [43].

**3.11 The difference in the implementation of AR and VR for helping children with autism to empathize and improve their transpositional thinking**

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

virtual content, in order to obtain the feeling of empathy.

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

**Figure 6.**

**45**

AR can help children with autism to implement empathy skills, by using board games. The intervention method of AR technology is usually to superimpose the content of different media on an object. For example, AR can superimpose different 3D virtual facial expressions on the autistic patient's face to help them think about the different kinds of emotions that are present in themselves. We call this as selffacial modeling (**Figure 5**), which was previously impossible to achieve, but it can be done by using AR technology. In addition, AR can provide some virtual 3D decorations for children to play with, or it can augment some virtual 3D animations on their body by self-reference, which are shown on a screen, to help a child pretend he is a king or a specific character (**Figure 6**). In this form, AR will become a tool to help autistic children to imagine and pretend, and they will gain the ability to empathize from it. This strategy lets autistic children play the game of empathy through the mechanism of pretend-play. Most of the AR methods are used to manipulate or passively perceive the comparison between real objects and the

From another perspective, VR provides a completely immersive picture experience, but it has different effects, compared to AR. The current VR technology can change a person's judgment of the senses, which allows one to fully integrate another person's perspectives, and this method can make one see the world through another person's eyes. In addition, through the exchange of different perspectives, the individual can even see the state of interaction between himself and another person, through the eyes of others, or he can experience and observe the type of social interaction from a different personal perspective. This approach greatly changes and breaks through the VR of the past, as a mechanism for on-site

*Using AR technology to help children with autism to elicit pretend-play and symbolic play (a crown means a king, or courage). An autistic child can also play a self-role game; its meaning is different from a table game, because participants can join this scene face-to-face and play with others who are also self-imitating.*
