Exploring Communication among people with Neurodevelopmental Disorder during Cooperative Play in Augmented and Virtual Reality

The article investigates cooperative interaction in Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) for individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) and compares the potential of these interaction paradigms to enhance the communication skills of this population. Two versions of a cooperative game called SMUP (Social Match UP) were created in AR and VR, respectively, involving NDD specialists in the co-design process. During a within-subjects empirical study involving 30 subjects with NDD, we measured both the usability and verbal interaction of the two versions, known as SMUP-AR and SMUP-VR. The findings suggest that both SMUP-AR and SMUP-VR exhibited a good degree of usability for individuals with NDD, with no statistically significant differences between the two versions. However, the evaluation of communication skills, based on the analysis of the verbal production of users under the two experimental conditions, indicates that SMUP-AR had a stronger effect in promoting dialogic interaction compared to SMUP-VR. In addition, the paper discusses insights from the study on the UX design of cooperative AR and VR technology for people with NDD.