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What is the context of this research?

Poor attention is associated with challenges in everyday cognitive, social (e.g., peer relationships) and academic functioning (reading & math achievement).



Advances in virtual reality technology have led to innovative therapies for treating anxiety and PTSD. Our goal is to develop a new virtual reality intervention to improve attentional functioning, where children learn to habituate to distractions within a Virtual Classroom. Children will complete cognitive tasks (e.g., math) while learning to ignore virtual kids talking in the classroom, pencils being sharpened, a virtual teacher walking across a classroom, a student sneezing and other common distractors. Kids will practice the therapy at home with the OculusRift and we will test its effectiveness on task performance and behavior.

What is the significance of this project?

Problems with attention are very common (about 5% of kids and adults). Negative outcomes include a lower chance of graduating from high school and higher risks of substance abuse and arrests. Current treatments have short-term benefits but often do not lead to long-term improvements.The development of effective, nonmedication interventions for attentional impairments is critical to fill the void.



Successful treatment of attentional impairments has potential relevance to the majority of developmental disorders and psychiatric conditions, including ADHD, schizophrenia and autism. The development of precise treatments for attentional impairments can have wide applicability to help people be more successful in school and work settings where distractors are more common than ever (e.g., texts).





What are the goals of the project?

Primary goals:

Develop the software (using existing platforms and avatars)

Establish proof-of-principle

Pilot test feasibility

Gather preliminary outcome data

After successfully developing the virtual therapy classroom software with distractors, we will test it in a small group of children and use the pilot data for funding future grants and large-scale clinical trials.This project is an important first step toward developing an improved behavioral therapy for attention problems. Based on the success of this project, our future goals would be to update the virtual classroom to make it even more realistic, adapt it to so that we could target treatment based upon an individual's specific problems.