# High-Functioning Autism and Virtual Reality Applications: A Scoping Review
## 3 Results
### Investigated Dimensions
#### 3.2.1 Social Skills  
This section summarizes the studies using VR environments with a specific focus on social skills, which was the most represented category in the reviewed papers. Five papers investigated social skills simulating interactions with police officers [44, 47] or peers [50, 57, 59]. Social adaptation was targeted by three papers [46, 56, 58]. Three papers focused both on social interaction and social adaptation [51, 65, 66]. [PERSON] and colleagues employed mobile immersive VR commercial software (Police Safety Module, Floreo), delivered through a smartphone, a tablet, and a headset, aimed at fostering social skills in HF ASD while interacting with police officers [47]. The system's usability, as well as feasibility and safety, were evaluated. Results on 28 participants showed good feasibility and no adverse effects associated with this VR experience. Also, [PERSON] and colleagues examined the feasibility of immersive VR training for HF ASD individuals interacting with police officers [44]. They used the same commercial software used by [PERSON] and implemented a 6-week treatment, asking HFA participants to interact with law enforcement officers. The results showed that participants reported high levels of enjoyment and usability, thus encouraging them to participate in further VR sessions. Aside from the specific situation of interacting with a police officer, researchers have focused on socialization with peers and how to support it [50, 57, 59]. [PERSON] and colleagues simulated a VR public speaking task to assess social attention in the HF ASD population. The results showed atypical attention, as measured by gaze orienting or number of looks, fixation length, and the average duration of fixations that the participants oriented toward avatars seated around a table in a 3D classroom. Another example of socialization with peers included in this review concerns the social etiquette of HF ASD children in a 3D simulation of a real scenario: an amusement park system [57]. The participants were asked to explore and familiarize themselves with the virtual environment and to choose appropriate answers according to social etiquette, experiencing consequent feedback with an animation. The results showed that the participants benefited from the 3-month VR intervention, with improved outcomes in social etiquette skills. The most recent contribution regarding socialization with peers was published by [PERSON] and [PERSON] in 2020. Their research focused on the exercise of social and emotional competencies in two VR environments, a school classroom and a backyard garden, each involving two teachers and six children. Characters (or avatars) represented different personalities and ethnicities, and HF ASD individuals could choose from a predefined set of options that would influence \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c} \hline \hline
**Category** & **HMD** & **Cave** & **SI VR** \\ \hline Social skills & 7 & 1 & 3 \\ Eye gaze and Joint attention & 3 & / & / \\ Motor learning & / & 2 & 1 \\ Job training & 1 & / & 1 \\ Other & 4 & / & / \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 4: Distribution of papers considering the defined 5 categories (i.e., social interaction, eye gaze and joint attention, motor learning, job training, and others), divided according to the type of technology. SI-VR: semi-immersive VR. the consequent avatar's behavior. The results are promising for educational purposes regarding HF ASD individuals, who might benefit from this intervention and experience better adaptation in social contexts [50]. Aside from social interaction, VR is used to deliver interventions regarding ASD individuals' adaptability to specific life scenarios. [PERSON] and colleagues aimed to determine the effectiveness of two VR scenarios, a classroom and a bus stop, to improve social skills and understanding: For the bus scenario, some of the target behaviors were to stay in line, choose a seat on the bus, or give up a seat.