Extended Reality Guidelines for Supporting Autism Interventions Based on Stakeholders' Needs.

Researchers interviewed 34 autism practitioners to understand how virtual and augmented reality technologies could better help autistic people. Current technology research mainly focuses on social skills for children who need less support, but real-world interventions help with many different skills across all support levels. The study found that collaborative virtual reality programs that include sensory experiences could benefit all autistic people, not just those currently targeted by existing technology.

This study conducted 34 interviews with stakeholders, primarily practitioners, to identify how Extended Reality (XR) technologies could better support autism interventions across the entire spectrum. Current XR autism research predominantly focuses on social-emotional skills for autistic children requiring minimal support, while common interventions address broader abilities including perceptual skills. The research identified emerging XR use cases and developed design guidelines, comparing findings with previous systematic reviews and literature surveys. The study suggests that collaborative XR approaches incorporating sensory-based and mediation elements could benefit autistic individuals across the entire support spectrum, potentially expanding XR applications beyond current limitations.

Results suggest XR technologies should be developed with broader applications beyond social-emotional skills, incorporating sensory-based approaches for the entire autism spectrum. Guidelines emerging from this stakeholder consultation could inform more inclusive and comprehensive XR intervention development aligned with practitioner needs.

Study limitations include unclear methodology details for the interview analysis, lack of reported sample characteristics, and absence of quantitative outcome measures. The findings represent stakeholder perspectives rather than empirical intervention effectiveness data.

While Extended Reality (XR) autism research, ranging from Augmented to Virtual Reality, focuses on socio-emotional abilities and autistic children requiring low support, common interventions address the entire spectrum and focus on other abilities, including perceptual abilities. Based on these observations, this paper first addresses common practitioners' interventions, and then suggests XR use cases and guidelines to better support them. To do so, 34 interviews were conducted with stakeholders, mainly including practitioners, and then analyzed. Emerging XR use cases were compared with the findings from two former systematic literature reviews, and emerging design guidelines were compared with the findings from a literature survey that we conducted.

Findings suggest that collaborative XR sensory-based and mediation approaches could benefit the entire spectrum.