The Virtual Classroom: A Virtual Reality Environment for the Assessment and Rehabilitation of Attention Deficits

Virtual Reality technology offers new options for the study, assessment, and rehabilitation of cognitive/functional processes. This paper describes the initiation of a research program aimed at developing a virtual “classroom” for the assessment of ADHD. The system uses a head mounted display, head, hand, and leg tracking, and is laptop deliverable. The classroom environment contains desks, a virtual teacher, a blackboard, a large window looking out onto a street with background buildings, vehicles, and people, and on each end of the wall opposite the window--a pair of doorways, through which activity occurs. Within this scenario, normal and ADHD-diagnosed children are assessed for performance on visual and audio attention tasks while a series of typical classroom distracters are systematically manipulated within the virtual environment. This technology is seen to offer many advantages for these aims and an introductory section of this paper will discuss the specific rationale for VR applications in the area of clinical neuropsychology.