Virtual Reality Sensory Rooms: A Tool to Reduce Anxiety in Autistic Adults

With the current rise in autism diagnoses and the resultant strain on mental health services, it has become increasingly necessary to consider anxiety management techniques for autistic adults that are not reliant on a large amount of resources, both financial and physical. Furthermore, the current increase in availability of virtual reality headsets on the commercial market brings increased interest in applications for virtual reality for purposes beyond gaming. Previous success has been shown by other researchers in the use of virtual reality sensory rooms to reduce anxiety in patients of residential facilities, however these studies were not solely focussed on autism, and focussed on those in a residential setting. As such, it was deemed important to focus on autistic participants and examine the effectiveness of such a program for autistic adults who are not in the position to require residential care facilities. Therefore this work aims to explore the effectiveness of an emulated sensory room in virtual reality by examining the STAI data and heart rate data of a 29 person study.