Researchers Developing Virtual Reality Platform to Teach Behavioral Intervention Skills

“Learning by doing,” also known as The Missouri Method, is a central educational pillar of the University of Missouri. Providing behavior analysis students hands-on working experiences with behavior therapy patients at the Thompson Center is a great example of this educational pillar at work. However, it is important for behavior analysis students to gain certain skills before they work directly with children with special needs.

Now, Dr. Casey Clay, an assistant professor of health psychology at the University of Missouri, is developing a virtual reality simulator to allow students to get hands-on experiential learning without worrying about the safety of the children and the students.

“When working with children with special needs, especially children with severe behavioral problems, it is important for behavior analysts to understand how to best help these children so they will not harm themselves or others,” Clay said. “Virtual reality will allow our students to learn these skills in a safe environment, so that when they begin working with real children, they will be prepared for any challenges that may arise.”

For his research, Clay is collaborating with Dr. Bimal Balakrishnan, an associate professor and director of the Immersive Visualization Lab (iLab) in the MU Department of Architectural Studies. The two researchers are building virtual reality simulations of behavioral therapy sessions with children with severe behavior problems.

Wearing virtual reality goggles, students will be able to immerse themselves in these simulations and treat the simulated patients as they would in a real-life therapy session. Students can interact with the patients and receive real-time feedback from the simulator and their instructor.

“We believe this will be a valuable teaching tool for students to learn skills to identify when a child might become harmful to themselves or others,” Clay said. “Once students can learn these skills safely, they can then transition into real-life therapy sessions, including sessions with Thompson Center patients, to learn additional intervention skills while helping those patients grow and learn themselves.”

Clay also hopes to use this technology in the future to help train parents on how to interact with their children with severe behavioral problems.

Clay and Balakrishnan plan to conduct a pilot study of this virtual reality simulation in the spring of 2018. If successful, they will conduct further research and begin to implement the simulations into educational curriculum.