Hi.
Have a seat.
Okay, can you find who made that sound?
So many of my students
tell me that their mind
is so disconnected from their body that
they wish that they could
leave their body behind.
In the world of Virtual Reality, suddenly
you have a child who feels
empowered, who feels that
they have some control over their world.
That's a whole different experience
from the real world
for people with Autism.
They're controlling everything.
They're in charge.
We have gone through lots
of different headsets
to figure out the best ones.
So this is actually a consumer launch oculus.
This one had a nice form factor for kids.
This is Vijay.
He's the CEO of a Virtual
Reality company called Floreo.
Hence all the headsets in his basement.
I'm also a dad.
We have two kids.
An eight and a four year old.
And our son is on the Autism spectrum.
As parents of a child with
Autism you're always looking
for those moments where you find
healthy engagement with something.
That where your pretend house is?
-Yeah!
Manoj has a deep interest
in maps and navigation.
It's Ocean City.
We call him our human GPS.
Ocean City, Maryland.
Manoj makes you look at the
world in a whole new way.
Like he notices things
that I don't notice.
It's one, look at that!
In late 2015, Google Street
View became available
as a virtual reality application.
Now it's satellite mode!
It is satellite mode.
I had a virtual reality headset
and I was really curious
to see whether he would enjoy it or not.
Come over here, put it on.
He tried on the headset, and...
He loved it.
Vibha was the one who
then made the connection
as like what if VR could be
used as a medium for coaching
skills and eventually, if you
could prove it out, be therapy.
What I've learned is
that the Autistic brain
has neurological
differences that can present
different strengths and challenges.
Our ideas in VR, it's in 3D space.
It involves the same kinds
of navigation challenges
and communication
challenges and that practice
is just more useful, more applicable.
Generally, people with Autism
tend to have difficulty
communicating with others and
focusing in group settings
so Vibha and Vijay created
a company that started
to make VR lessons that could
build communication skills.
Floreo's lessons work on
elements of a very important
foundational skill called joint attention.
Joint attention is the
ability for two people
to establish shared
focus on the same object.
It's a pretty important
social skill that many people
with Autism tend to struggle with.
What Vijay and Vibha
needed to prove was that VR
could actually help children with Autism
build those types of skills.
And they needed a partner
to help them do it.
This is Celebrate the Children.
A special needs school
in Northern New Jersey.
And like most schools,
they're trying to find
innovative ways to use technology
to help their students.
They can then bring so much
more to those face-to-face
real life interactions to be
able to express their ideas,
to feel more in control and less anxious.
Many of the students at
Celebrate the Children
have more severe forms
of Autism than Manoj.
A lot are non-verbal.
So even basic communication
is a really big challenge.
This is Max.
He has limited language
skills and he often struggles
with using joint attention
in the classroom.
Would you rather swim
in the ocean or a pool?
When Floreo decided to pilot their program
at Celebrate the Children,
they wanted to find out
if their VR tools could help kids like Max
build skills like joint attention.
Okay, so Max, how are you feeling today?
Okay, so you're going to put this on.
Are you sure you're okay
with your glasses, right?
Alright, there we are.
Keep looking around.
You found the chimp!
Great job!
Awesome!
Okay, let's see what else.
Is that a bird squawking?
Great job, you found it!
First try!
Alright.
Thank you.
Great work Max.
Did you enjoy Floreo today?
Yes.
Great.
Good work!
Bye
Bye!
Unbelievable!
That was incredible.
I'm impressed.
Processing language and
accessing his language
is very difficult for him
and that's where the anxiety
comes down, the confidence comes up
and the motivation to come
back and keep doing this.
And Max isn't the only student
who participated in Floreo's program.
Hey Drew, perfect.
We measure several different dimensions
of skill joint attention
and 10 of the 12 kids
showed clear improvements in that skill.
These were older kids who had
more moderate to severe autism.
Floreo is busy building
more advanced training
situations in Virtual Reality.
Can I talk to you a moment?
Yes
This is Manoj beta testing the latest one.
A police safety simulation.
The police safety module
is part of an NIH study
and partnership with Children's Hospital
of Philadelphia's Center
for Autism Research.
Floreo started building
the police safety module
after an incident in 2016
where police approached
an Autistic man who wandered
from his group home.
The incident resulted in his caretaker
being shot by the police.
We basically started
building content to simulate
what it would be like to
have an unexpected encounter
with law enforcement
and start being exposed
to some of the language
that the officers would use
in that interaction.
Alright, you're free to go.
These children are intelligent.
It's not a matter of an
intellectual disability,
it's more how the information is coming in
and their inability to
organize that information.
There is transferral between
enjoying an activity
in the digital space
to then building skills
and applying it to the real world.
And if you can then build
on that you can then
take their engagement to
new levels of relationship
with finding new ways of play
and enjoyment, relationship
with their parents...
It just opens their world up more.
[music fades]
