Design of Eyegaze-Sensitive Virtual Reality Based Social Communication Platform for Individuals with Autism

Deficits in adaptive social communication skills and poor dyadic eye contact are critical concerns among children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Also, they often exhibit high social anxiety which restricts them from socialization. Recent advancement in technologies, e.g., Virtual Reality (VR) have shown its promise in training and intervention tasks for individuals with ASD, carried out in a safe and controlled environment. In this paper, we describe the design of Eyegazesensitive VIrtual reality based Social communication Platform (E-VISP) as a proof-of-concept application dealing with some of the aspects of social communication skills for children with autism. Preliminary results of a usability study with two pairs of individuals with ASD and Typically Developing (TD) participants indicate the feasibility of our E-VISP to cause variations in their task performance, behavioral viewing (e.g., fixation duration) and gaze-related biomarkers (e.g., pupil diameter and blink-rate) that can be mapped to their individualized anxiety levels.