Project Summary

This project explores how Virtual Reality (VR) can be used to create a safe, interactive, and supportive learning experience for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Autism is a developmental condition that affects how individuals communicate, learn, interact socially, and respond to the world around them. It is known as a “spectrum” because every child experiences autism differently. Some may find speech challenging, while others may struggle with facial expressions, eye contact, routines, sounds, textures, or sudden changes in their environment.

Children with autism often benefit from calm, predictable, and structured learning spaces. Rather than focusing on a cure, support for children with ASD aims to build confidence, independence, communication, and daily life skills over time. Early support is especially important, as it allows children to practise small tasks gradually in a way that feels safe and manageable. A trusted and supportive environment can help reduce stress and encourage children to engage, explore, and learn at their own pace.

Virtual Reality offers a unique opportunity to support this kind of learning. VR creates a simulated environment that can resemble the real world while remaining controlled and risk-free. Through 3D visuals, sound, movement, and interaction, users can feel present inside a digital space. This makes VR especially useful for practising situations that may be difficult, expensive, overwhelming, or unsafe in real life. It allows children to repeat tasks, make mistakes, and learn through experience without facing real-world risks.

Developed as an interdisciplinary collaboration with the CIS Department, this project combines applied media design, interaction design, educational research, and computing technologies. This partnership allowed the project to connect creative design thinking with technical development, ensuring that the VR experience was both visually engaging and functionally responsive to the learning needs of children with ASD.

Based on these ideas, the project introduces an interactive VR game set inside a pretend kitchen. The child enters a virtual cooking space where they can complete simple food preparation activities in a calm and playful way. Each task is broken into small, clear steps supported by gentle visual instructions and a soft guiding voice. The environment is designed to be predictable, friendly, and easy to follow, helping children with ASD process information without feeling overwhelmed.

The selected recipes include a sandwich, salad, fruit plate, and orange juice. These were chosen for educational, psychological, and practical reasons. They are familiar everyday meals, require no heat or dangerous equipment, and involve simple actions such as placing, slicing, mixing, and arranging. These repeated movements help children practise focus, sequencing, hand coordination, and independence.

By completing these cooking tasks in VR, children can build confidence before applying similar skills in real life. The experience encourages routine, patience, and self-reliance while keeping the learning process playful and safe. Over time, the project aims to help children become more comfortable with everyday food preparation, giving them a greater sense of achievement and independence beyond the virtual environment.