Effectiveness of an Immersive Virtual Environment (CAVE) for Teaching Pedestrian Crossing to Children with PDD-NOS

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) exhibit a range of developmental disabilities, with mild to severe effects in social interaction and communication. Children with PDD-NOS, Autism and co-existing conditions are facing enormous challenges in their lives, dealing with their difficulties in sensory perception, repetitive behaviors and interests. These challenges result in them being less independent or not independent at all. Part of becoming independent involves being able to function in real world settings, settings that are not controlled. Pedestrian crossings fall under this category: as children (and later as adults) they have to learn to cross roads safely. In this paper, we report on a study we carried out with 6 children with PDD-NOS over a period of four (4) days using a VR CAVE virtual environment to teach them how to safely cross at a pedestrian crossing. Results indicated that most children were able to achieve the desired goal of learning the task, which was verified in the end of the 4-day period by having them cross a real pedestrian crossing (albeit with their parent/educator discretely next to them for safety reasons)

User Experience Observations on Factors That Affect Performance in a Road-Crossing Training Application for Children Using the CAVE

Each year thousands of pedestrian get killed in road accidents and millions are non-fatally injured. Many of these involve children and occur when crossing at or between intersections. It is more difficult for children to understand, assess and predict risky situations, especially in settings that they don't have that much experience in, such as in a city. Virtual Reality has been used to simulate situations that are too dangerous to practice in real life and has proven to be advantageous when used in training, aiming at improving skills. This paper presents a road-crossing application that simulates a pedestrian crossing found in a city setting. Children have to evaluate all given pieces of information (traffic lights, cars crossing, etc.) and then try to safely cross the road in a virtual environment. A VR CAVE is used to immerse children in the city scene. User experience observations were made so as to identify the factors that seem to affect children's performance. Results indicate that the application was well received as a learning tool and that gender; immersion and traffic noise seem to affect children's performance

User experience observations on factors that affect performance in a road-crossing training application for children using the CAVE

Each year thousands of pedestrian get killed in road accidents and millions are non-fatally injured. Many of these involve children and occur when crossing at or between intersections. It is more difficult for children to understand, assess and predict risky situations, especially in settings that they don't have that much experience in, such as in a city. Virtual Reality has been used to simulate situations that are too dangerous to practice in real life and has proven to be advantageous when used in training, aiming at improving skills. This paper presents a road-crossing application that simulates a pedestrian crossing found in a city setting. Children have to evaluate all given pieces of information (traffic lights, cars crossing, etc.) and then try to safely cross the road in a virtual environment. A VR CAVE is used to immerse children in the city scene. User experience observations were made so as to identify the factors that seem to affect children's performance. Results indicate that the application was well received as a learning tool and that gender; immersion and traffic noise seem to affect children's performance