Immersive Virtual Reality for Teaching Law Enforcement Interaction Skills to Autistic Adolescents and Adults: Results of a Randomized Control Trial

Background: Approximately one fifth of adolescents with ASD will be stopped and questioned by a police officer before their early twenties
Individuals on the spectrum often have difficulty with sensory stimulation, novel problem solving, and rapidly processing social situations in real time, which can make police interactions challenging
Virtual reality (VR) can be a useful tool as it provides individuals with the opportunity to practice interacting with police officers in a safe, simulated environment

Methods: Participants: Forty-seven verbally fluent adolescents and adults with ASD were randomly assigned to three sessions of either an immersive VR-Based intervention (Floreo PSM) or a video modeling-based intervention (BeSAFE) designed to increase knowledge and skills necessary for interacting with police officers.
Participants engaged in a 3- to 5-minute live interaction assessment before and after intervention.
Pre-intervention, participants interacted with a novel study staff member who presented as a police officer.
Post-intervention, participants interacted with an actual police officer or a uniformed security officer.
Interactions were recorded and scored in 15-second segments.
Each segment was coded for: appropriateness of verbal response, orienting behavior, fidgeting behavior, and overall behavior.
Scores were averaged across each behavioral category and compared pre- and post-intervention.

Results: Linear mixed effects regression revealed significant conditional main effects of time (pre-/post-intervention) on ratings of three categories after controlling for IQ, age, and sex:
Overall behavior (p=.004)
Appropriate verbal response p=.003) and,
Fidgeting (p <.001)
A significant condition-by-time interaction emerged for fidgeting (p=.005).
Significant improvements from pre- to post-intervention in the Floreo PSM condition as compared to the BeSAFE condition on three out of four variables.

Conclusion: Participants’ behaviors when interacting with a live police officer were rated as more appropriate after completing VR-based or video modeling-based interventions
Evidence that VR-based practice was particularly effective at reducing anxiety-related (fidgeting) behavior