Development and Application of a Metaverse-Based Social Skills Training Program for Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder to Improve Social Interaction: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial

Abstract

Background Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is characterized by abnormalities in social communication and limited and repetitive behavioral patterns. Children with ASD who lack social communication skills will eventually not interact with others and will lack peer relationships when compared to ordinary people. Thus, it is necessary to develop a program to improve social communication abilities using digital technology in people with ASD. Objective We intend to develop and apply a metaverse-based child social skills training program aimed at improving the social interaction abilities of children with ASD aged 7-12 years. We plan to compare and analyze the biometric information collected through wearable devices when applying the metaverse-based social skills training program to evaluate emotional changes in children with ASD in stressful situations. Methods This parallel randomized controlled study will be conducted on children aged 7-12 years diagnosed with ASD. A metaverse-based social skills training program using digital technology will be administered to children who voluntarily wish to participate in the research with consent from their legal guardians. The treatment group will participate in the metaverse-based social skills training program developed by this research team once a week for 60 minutes per session for 4 weeks. The control group will not intervene during the experiment. The treatment group will use wearable devices during the experiment to collect real-time biometric information. Results The study is expected to recruit and enroll participants in March 2022. After registering the participants, the study will be conducted from March 2022 to May 2022. This research will be jointly conducted by Yonsei University and Dobrain Co Ltd. Children participating in the program will use the internet-based platform. Conclusions The metaverse-based Program for the Education and Enrichment of Relational Skills (PEERS) will be effective in improving the social skills of children with ASD, similar to the offline PEERS program. The metaverse-based PEERS program offers excellent accessibility and is inexpensive because it can be administered at home; thus, it is expected to be effective in many children with ASD. If a method can be applied to detect children's emotional changes early using biometric information collected through wearable devices, then emotional changes such as anxiety and anger can be alleviated in advance, thus reducing issues in children with ASD. Trial Registration Clinical Research Information Service KCT0006859; https://tinyurl.com/4r3k7cmj International Registered Report Identifier (IRRID) PRR1-10.2196/35960

The promise of the metaverse in mental health: the new era of MEDverse

“…As already proposed for BDD and eating disorders, the employment of VR approaches for treating behavioral disorders has been used using the traditional design, whereas it remains completely unexplored what will change when moving to the metaverse technology. A first randomized controlled trial was launched a few months ago by Lee et al. (2022) , to evaluate if a metaverse-based child social skills training program could improve the social interaction abilities of children with ASD.…”

Metaverse for Healthcare: A Survey on Potential Applications, Challenges and Future Directions

“…In addition to surgery, doctors are using VR for examining colonoscopies, providing training to the medical students, and many other applications. Social skills training for children affected with Autism Spectrum Disorder can also be provided with the help of the Metaverse [192]. The common thread is the need to intuitively understand and interact with anatomy and ultimately improve patient care.…”

Metaverse: Trend, emerging themes, and future directions

“…20 In the 2010s, the majority of publications were still written by computer scientists and engineers, but metaverse started drawing attention from researchers in some other disciplines such as business, management and marketing, 21,22 social sciences, 23,24 and arts and humanities (Ayiter and de Sousa). 25,26 Between 2020 and 2022, metaverse had continuously drawn attention from computer science, engineering, business, management and marketing, social sciences, and arts and humanities while researchers in other disciplines including medicine, [27][28][29] psychology, 30,31 and finance 32,33 started exploring the use of metaverse in their specific applications. As such, metaverse becomes a multidisciplinary research area because it involves the interactions between technology, humans, business entities, communities, and non-governmental and governmental organizations.…”