Sexual Violence in Virtual Reality: A Scoping Review.

BACKGROUND: One in four Americans report experiencing harassment online via social media and interactive gaming, which includes physical threats, stalking, sexual harassment, and sustained harassment. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to gain understanding of the state of the science surrounding young adults and sexual violence/harassment harms in virtual reality (VR) as well as possible uses of VR to heal and intervene. METHODS: A scoping review was conducted in early 2023 using the Ovid Synthesis Clinical Evidence Manager and the MEDLINE database. Forty-seven articles met inclusion criteria. RESULTS: Our review found a growing body of evidence exploring incidents, effects, possible predictors, and initial strategies to prevent sexual violence in VR and to use the modality to positively intervene. Limited research addresses the effects of harms incurred in VR on (re)traumatization of survivors as well as the development and testing of VR tools used to educate, deliver bystander interventions, transform biases and perceptions via embodiment, and promote healing among survivors. CONCLUSION: Research addressing sexual violence in VR is needed and should build on the existing peripheral science on gaming and social media environments. Forensic nursing is well positioned to advance strategies of health and safety in VR, just as in the physical world. Incorporating forensic nursing avatars in VR and deploying diverse resources targeted for college-age young adults to prevent harms in VR should be explored safely and ethically. Forensic nurses are also positioned to assess for VR-related harms among patients and to work with private and government sectors to influence regulations and policies.

Increasing responding to others' joint attention directives using circumscribed interests.

Children with autism show significant deficits in joint attention (JA), which occurs when 2 people engage in verbalizations, gestures, or eye contact with each other and a common object. Children with autism also exhibit intense interests in specific topics (i.e., circumscribed interests; CI). This study investigated the effectiveness of teaching responding to JA directives (RJA) to 3 children with autism while engaged in CI activities. RJA increased during intervention and generalized from CI to preferred activities.

Advancing imitation and requesting skills in toddlers with Down syndrome.

Drawing upon information about the Down syndrome behavioral phenotype and empirically based intervention strategies, we examined intervention addressing early communication impairments in young children with Down syndrome. Intervention involved multiple opportunities, shaping, prompting, and reinforcement to address both verbal imitation and requesting. Intervention also incorporated the relative strengths in social development characteristic of the Down syndrome behavioral phenotype by focusing on a more social request prior to addressing the more impaired instrumental request, as well as incorporating social consequences. Three of the four toddlers with Down syndrome were taught verbal imitation skills, two of whom generalized to novel sounds. All four toddlers with Down syndrome acquired requesting skills in the form of gaze shifting and vocalizing; three were also taught verbal approximations of requesting words (e.g., "mm" for "more") using imitative prompts. These results contribute to the small, but growing, literature demonstrating behavior analytic interventions informed by an understanding of the Down syndrome behavioral phenotype.