Social talk in virtual spaces: an observational study of pragmatic communication in children with autism spectrum disorder during avatar-mediated interaction.

Introduction: Immersive virtual environments offer organized social contexts for the observation of communication behaviors under standardized and interactive conditions. This study adopts a VR-based observational approach to examine pragmatic social communication behaviors exhibited during structured social scenarios in autistic children, with a specific focus on social reciprocity and context-appropriate verbal communication. Methods: The study included twenty-five children between the ages of 5 and 12 who were diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). A structured social scenario was presented by the Virtual Reality (VR) system to elicit social communication behaviors, including greeting initiation and response, attention to speakers, turn-taking, and context-appropriate verbal responses. Social communication outcomes were assessed using selected domains of the Indian Scale for Assessment of autism (ISAA). In addition, the Social Communication Questionnaire (SCQ) and a VR-based Pragmatic Social Communication Observation Checklist (VR-PSCOC) were used to assess in-scenario behaviors. Results: The post-VR analysis revealed measurable changes across the assessed pragmatic social communication domains during repeated exposure to the VR scenarios. Variations were observed in the ISAA social-communication related domains, including speech-language, communication, and social relationship and reciprocity scores (p<0.001). Repeated VR exposure was associated with higher observational scores, indicating observable changes in social communication behaviors within the structured virtual environment. Discussion: The findings indicate that the structured VR-based social scenarios provide a feasible environment for observing and characterizing social communication behaviors in children with ASD within controlled interaction settings.