The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

Virtual environments for social skills intervention: current findings and future challenges

Virtual environments for social skills intervention: current findings and future challenges
Virtual environments for social skills intervention: current findings and future challenges
Improving social understanding through social skills training for children and people with autism remains a high priority for parents, teachers and practitioners. At the core of an Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) lies a fundamental difficulty in understanding, relating and responding to the social world and this can have a substantial impact on friendships, long-term health, life chances and opportunities. Consequently, many research efforts have focused on developing programmes or approaches to learning and intervention that specifically target social and life skills. Early (behavioural) intervention for children with autism has demonstrated that remarkable gains in learning and behaviour can be made for some children under some circumstances (see Baker and Feinfield, 2003, for a recent review). For older children and young adults with autism there have been some more cognitively-based approaches to improving understanding of social skills, with varying degrees of success (see Parsons & Mitchell, 2002 for a review). My own research has considered the role that technology – specifically Virtual Reality Technology (VRT) - may play in supporting social skills learning and development in adolescents with ASDs. This chapter summarises the potential strengths of this approach as well as some of the findings from recent research. I will then move on to consider the implications and challenges of this research for future intervention.
Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Social
Parsons, Sarah
5af3382f-cda3-489c-a336-9604f3c04d7d
García-Villamisar, D.
Parsons, Sarah
5af3382f-cda3-489c-a336-9604f3c04d7d
García-Villamisar, D.

Parsons, Sarah (2007) Virtual environments for social skills intervention: current findings and future challenges. García-Villamisar, D. (ed.) In El autismo en personas adultas. Nuevas perspectivas de futuro. Ministerio de Trabajo y Asuntos Social..

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

Improving social understanding through social skills training for children and people with autism remains a high priority for parents, teachers and practitioners. At the core of an Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) lies a fundamental difficulty in understanding, relating and responding to the social world and this can have a substantial impact on friendships, long-term health, life chances and opportunities. Consequently, many research efforts have focused on developing programmes or approaches to learning and intervention that specifically target social and life skills. Early (behavioural) intervention for children with autism has demonstrated that remarkable gains in learning and behaviour can be made for some children under some circumstances (see Baker and Feinfield, 2003, for a recent review). For older children and young adults with autism there have been some more cognitively-based approaches to improving understanding of social skills, with varying degrees of success (see Parsons & Mitchell, 2002 for a review). My own research has considered the role that technology – specifically Virtual Reality Technology (VRT) - may play in supporting social skills learning and development in adolescents with ASDs. This chapter summarises the potential strengths of this approach as well as some of the findings from recent research. I will then move on to consider the implications and challenges of this research for future intervention.

Text
Parsons_2007_chapter.pdf - Accepted Manuscript
Restricted to Repository staff only
Request a copy

More information

Published date: 2007
Additional Information: Precede al tít. : XXV Aniversario de la Asociación Nuevo Horizonte. Gobierno de España. Depósito legal: M-35365-2007.
Venue - Dates: conference; 2007-01-01, 2007-01-01

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 195877
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/195877
PURE UUID: 428a41eb-0bc7-4deb-be6f-b8cab21ba97c
ORCID for Sarah Parsons: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-2542-4745

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 31 Aug 2011 08:49
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:38

Export record

Contributors

Author: Sarah Parsons ORCID iD
Editor: D. García-Villamisar

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×