Reflect, Reframe, Respawn: The Importance of Immersion in Virtual Social Coaching

Reflect, Reframe Respawn discusses the impact of virtual environments and social coaching on neurodivergent populations and beyond. Typical social skills trainings must rely completely on coach lead conversations and the imagination of a client. This type of role play has clients taking on a cognitive load to imagine their therapist as a totally new person and create an imaginary place in a typical therapy office. This can create a significant cognitive load for clients as they imagine new scenarios and conversational partners

The Charisma Virtual Social Coaching program, developed by the Center for BrainHealth at the University of Texas at Dallas, leverages low immersive virtual reality to provide a more interactive and engaging training environment. By combining voice morphing, virtual worlds, and therapist-led coaching, Charisma enables clients to practice social interactions in realistic, lifelike scenarios.

Therapists in Charisma play dual roles - first as coaches, providing guidance and facilitating client reflections, and secondly as "peer" avatars, embodying various personalities to create rich conversational experiences. This approach not only enhances social cognition, but also fosters resilience, adaptability, and confidence that clients can apply in their everyday lives.

By integrating cutting-edge virtual environments with evidence-based practices, the Charisma program sets a new standard in social skills training. This innovative approach has demonstrated promising results for neurodivergent populations and has broader applications in therapeutic and educational settings.

Learning Objectives:

1.Distinguish the type of clients that Virtual Social coaching may be beneficial for

2.Summarize how the clinician and developer relationship can inform product design in therapeutic gaming

3.Consider 2-3 ways immersive technology can increase engagement and motivation in therapy

4.Identify 2 ways you can customize scenarios based on the goals of your clients