Parent and Primary Carer Perspectives on Virtual Reality Use with Autistic Children and Adults: An Exploratory Survey

Parents and primary carers often shape whether Autistic people access, trial, continue, or avoid virtual reality (VR), yet parent-focused evidence on family-level VR adoption remains limited. This exploratory, cross-sectional survey examined parent and primary carer perspectives on VR use, including perceived benefits, concerns, support goals, and intentions to use or continue using VR. Forty-one parents or primary carers of Autistic people aged 3–42 years completed this self-selected online survey. Descriptive statistics, Wilcoxon signed-rank tests, and Kendall’s tau-b correlations were used. Thirty participants reported that their child had previously used VR, mainly through home-based, commercial or general-purpose applications. Participants held favourable views of VR, particularly for controlled, predictable, and self-paced engagement. The clearest concerns related to neurodiversity-affirming design, cost, and screen time. Reported sensory support goals were positively associated with the likelihood of using or continuing to use VR (τb = 0.32, p = 0.02), whereas communication/social interaction and transition-related goals were not. Beyond participants’ favourable evaluations of VR, prior experience and access to guidance and resources were the clearest exploratory correlates of intention to use or continue using VR. These patterns need to be treated as hypothesis-generating, and the findings are specific to this small, self-selected and largely VR-exposed sample. Findings suggest a gap between family-led VR use and implementation support. Because the data reflect parent- and primary-carer-reported intentions to use or continue using VR, they do not establish VR effectiveness or represent Autistic users’ own experiences.