Virtual reality and naturalistic developmental behavioral interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder

This publication is included in the Autistic Autism Scholarship Project. one author of this publication is identified as autistic in the project.

About the autistic author marker

Dechsling, A., Shic, F., Zhang, D., Marschik, P. B., Esposito, G., Orm, S., Sütterlin, S., Kalandadze, T., Øien, R. A., & Nordahl-Hansen, A. (2021). Virtual reality and naturalistic developmental behavioral interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder. Research in Developmental Disabilities, 111, 103885. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2021.103885

Publication date: 5 Feb 2021 Added to AutiHub: 20 Sep 2026 Type: Article Article language: English

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Authors

Publication authors
10
Publication authors identified as autistic
1 / 10 (10.0%)

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Interventions (NDBI) have been evaluated as the most promising interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder. In recent years, a growing body of literature suggests that technological advancements such as Virtual Reality (VR) are promising intervention tools. However, to the best of our knowledge no studies have combined evidence-based practice with such tools. AIM: This article aims to review the current literature combining NDBI and VR, and provide suggestions on merging NDBI-approaches with VR. METHODS: This article is divided into two parts, where we first conduct a review mapping the research applying NDBI-approaches in VR. In the second part we argue how to apply the common features of NDBI into VR-technology. RESULTS: Our findings show that no VR-studies explicitly rely on NDBI-approaches, but some utilize elements in their interventions that are considered to be common features to NDBI. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS: As the results show, to date, no VR-based studies have utilized NDBI in their intervention. We therefore, in the second part of this article, suggests ways to merge VR and NDBI and introduce the term Virtual Naturalistic Developmental Behavioral Interventions (VNDBI). VNDBI is an innovative way of implementing NDBI which will contribute in making interventions more accessible in central as well as remote locations, while reducing unwanted variation between service sites. VNDBI will advance the possibilities of individually tailoring and widen the area of interventions. In addition, VNDBI can provide the field with new knowledge on effective components enhancing the accuracy in the intervention packages and thus move forward the research field and clinical practice.

Bibliography cited by this reference

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Cited bibliography overview

These indicators describe the bibliography cited by this publication. An author name is counted each time it appears in one cited reference, so the same person can be counted more than once. Names not yet linked to an author already present in AutiHub are treated as unknown, not as non-autistic. Last computed: 2 Oct 2026 01:40.

Cited references
62
With a DOI
49
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
9
3 / 62 (4.8%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
1 / 62 (1.6%)
References with detected author names
61 / 62 (98.4%)
Without detected author names
1
Without a structured title
0
Without a stable identifier
6
References with raw author names still to review
0
References with external metadata lookup issues
0
These indicators apply to cited references displayed on this page, after technical duplicates have been merged. A reference without a DOI can still support author statistics when a title and author names are available.
Author names detected in the cited bibliography
263
From DOI or external metadata
263
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
0
70 / 263 (26.6%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 193 / 263 (73.4%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
3 / 263 (1.1%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 3 / 70 (4.3%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 2 / 236 (0.8%).
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