Virtual reality and augmented reality as strategies for teaching social skills to individuals with intellectual disability: A systematic review.

Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) programs have proliferated significantly in recent years and they are finding their way into different educational and therapeutic purposes. This systematic review aims at analyzing the virtual reality and augmented reality programs designed to promote the development of social skills in individuals with intellectual disability. Searches were carried out in the Scopus, Science Direct, Springer and Web of Science databases in the period from 2005 to 2020. A total of six articles met the inclusion criteria. A descriptive data analysis was performed. The results show that the clinical profile of the individuals who participated in the interventions is diverse. It can be concluded that there is some scientific evidence that points to the usefulness of VR and AR in the development of intervention programs to improve the social skills of individuals diagnosed with developmental deficits. However, it is necessary to acknowledge methodological limitations such as the lack of control groups, follow-up measures and of generalization of the results.

Efectos del entrenamiento en marcos relacionales de condicionalidad sobre el responder relacional deíctico / Effects of Training in Conditional Relational Framing on the Deictic Relational Responding

Resumen Desde la Teoría de los Marcos Relacionales, la toma de perspectiva se concibe como un patrón de responder relacional arbitrariamente aplicable bajo control de claves contextuales deícticas personales, espaciales y temporales. Además, se asume necesaria la capacidad para responder relacionalmente bajo el control de claves contextuales condicionales. Sin embargo, no se ha reportado evidencia empírica que permita identificar la relación existente entre los marcos de condicionalidad y la precisión en el responder relacional deíctico. El objetivo del estudio fue analizar si el entrenamiento en marco de condicionalidad podría facilitar el desempeño sobre el responder deíctico. Participaron cuatro niños con desarrollo normalizado que fueron divididos en dos condiciones experimentales (C1 y C2). Los participantes de ambas condiciones se expusieron a un protocolo de evaluación y entrenamiento en marcos deícticos. A su vez, solo los participantes de la C2 se expusieron a una fase de evaluación y entrenamiento en marcos de condicionalidad previo al entrenamiento en marcos deícticos. Los resultados mostraron que todos los participantes exhibieron mejoras en sus ejecuciones post-test en las relaciones deícticas y que los participantes de C2 obtuvieron mejores resultados con respecto a su pre-test en los niveles de mayor complejidad deíctica tras el entrenamiento en marcos condicionales. Se discute la necesidad de protocolos de toma de perspectiva más naturalistas que posibiliten indagar en cómo se desarrollan los términos relacionales y se abstrae la función de las claves contextuales que permiten interpretar, atribuir y predecir el comportamiento de otro.

Abstract According to Relational Frame Theory, perspective taking is conceived as an arbitrarily applicable relational pattern of relational responding under the control of personal, spatial, and temporal deictic contextual cues. Furthermore, the ability to respond relationally under the control of conditional contextual cues is assumed to be necessary. However, no empirical evidence has been reported to identify the relationship between conditionality frames and accuracy in deictic relational responding. The study aimed to analyze whether training in conditionality frames could facilitate performance on deictic responding. Four children with normalized development participated and were divided into two experimental conditions (C1 and C2). Participants in both conditions were exposed to an evaluation protocol and training on deictic frames. In turn, only C2 participants were exposed to an evaluation and training phase in conditionality frames before the training in deictic frames. Results showed that all the participants exhibited improvements in their post-test performances on deictic relations and that the C2 participants performed better with respect to their pre-test on the levels of greater deictic complexity after training in conditional frames. We discuss the need for more naturalistic perspective-taking protocols that allow us to investigate how relational terms are developed and abstract the role of contextual cues that allow us to interpret, attribute, and predict another's behavior.