Table 4.
Findings of Included Studies
| Author (Year) | Outcome Measure (RL/VR?) | Analysis | Main Findings | Results |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adjorlu & Serafin2 | Ability to make correct purchases with real money (RL) | 1 | 4/5 of the students improved their abilities | ↑? |
| Adjorlu et al26 | Ability to shop based on shopping list (RL) | 2 | The treatment group reached 100% in both pre and post evaluation | → |
| Beach & Wendt12 | Qualitative as well as quantitative assessment of relevant social skills (RL) | 1 | The researchers found that both participants were able to improve their social skills after intervention | ↑? |
| Cheng et al25 | Social behaviour scale (SEB) with Social Events Cards (SEC) (RL) | 1ˣ | All participants improved their SEB scores from baseline through maintenance | ↑? |
| Dixon et al24 | Correct answer to question related to street crossing - Clinician asks, ”Is it safe to cross?” (RL). | 1 | All participants reached mastery criteria in both the VR and the natural setting measures | ↑? |
| Herrero & Lorenzo21 | Questionnaires answered by parents, teachers and researcher. As well as performance measured in VR. (VR+RL) | 1ˣ | The study group showed improvement compared to the control group | ↑? |
| Ravindran et al22 | Interactions, eye-contact, and initiation of interactions (RL) | 1 | 10 out of 12 participants showed an increase from pre-test to post-test on at least one measure | ↑? |
| Yeh & Meng23 | Answer speed, Conversation and expression, sentence structure, conversation etiquette. All scores are measured on point scales on evaluation sheets filled out by researcher (VR) | 2 | There is significant improvement on all four measures | ↑* |
Notes: (1) = Descriptive statistics, (2) = Inferential statistics, (↑)=Improvement in specific life skill(s), (→) = No change in specific life skill, (*) = p<0.05, (?)= no significance levels were reported, (ˣ) = Conducted a statistical analysis different from traditional significance testing.
Abbreviations: VR, virtual reality; RL, real life.