The Electrodermal Activity of Children with ASD in Virtual Reality Tasks Resembling Regular Actions

The diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is made through qualitative procedures addressed to children and their caregivers. On the one hand, these procedures are administered in anonymous settings with reduced ecological validity. On the other, they measure the child’s behaviours qualitatively, without using objective and implicit measurements that tap into the biological basis of the disorder. It is necessary to overcome these limitations by introducing ecological settings and objective measures related to the nuclear symptoms of the disorder. In this context, the present study wanted to test the feasibility of a virtual reality (VR) procedure to investigate different patterns in the electrodermal activity (EDA) between children with ASD and their peers with typical development (TD). Fifteen children with ASD and 15 with TD measured their EDA during baseline recording. Then, they performed three interactive virtual tasks resembling regular actions. They were to take game-based and non-game-based goal-directed actions. The results reinforced previous evidence on EDA differences in children with ASD during baseline recording compared to their peers with TD. They also suggested a potential relation between EDA at baseline and the diagnostic score indexes in the ASD group. Finally, this study reported the presence of different EDA patterns in children with ASD when they are asked to perform non-game-based virtual activities in which the upper limb movement is required to take goal-directed actions. This evidence might be relevant for implementing VR systems for the early and quantitative detection of ASD.