VR research has been promoted positively in the recent years
for the purpose to assist learning of children with autism. Dolphin-
assisted therapy has also become a topic of public and research
interest for autism intervention and treatment. To our best
knowledge, there is no research reported on the use of virtual
dolphins to help children with autism to learn. In particular, instead
of emulating the swimming with dolphins, we are interested
in the design and development of Virtual Dolphinarium to
assist children with autism to learn nonverbally communication
through gesturing. As an initial effort, a virtual dolphin interaction
(VDI) will be designed allowing children with autism to
act as dolphin trainers at the poolside. Immersive visualization
and gesture-based interaction will be developed to engage children
with autism to establish joint attention and to learn (nonverbal)
communication. The trial protocol of autism screening
from a pilot study will be reported with a small number of children
with autism to explore their readiness for this VDI. The potential
benefits of the research include 1) the elimination of the
risks of children with autism in the physical dolphin encounters;
2) protection of the endangered species by introducing virtual
dolphins in alternative dolphin-assisted therapy. Eventually, we
hope to have the VDI in the Virtual Dolphinarium as a new and
effective method to aid children with autism in their functional
development learning and behavior.