At NYC Autism Charter Schools, a VR platform called Floreo is putting students in virtual situations that are hard to create naturally or that don’t happen often enough to practice in real life, according to the school district's Director of Clinical Development Jennifer Jaye.
“Like, you only go to TSA airport checks when you go on vacation, but many of our students need multiple practice opportunities to be able to learn that routine and be able to comply with all the different instructions,” Jaye said.
HOW IT WORKS
To use Floreo, special educators choose from a library of VR scenarios involving the skills a student needs to build, such as understanding hand gestures or how to make small talk. The teacher can coach the student as they use the platform and guide the content of the virtual scenario from a connected iPad, according to Heidi Brueckmann, clinical supervisor at NYC Autism Charter Schools.
In her work with 5- to 9-year-olds with autism, Brueckmann said she uses Floreo on a regular basis, and her students are excited to do so. The tool is especially useful for social skills, she said, because she doesn’t have to stop the interaction or wait until later to provide corrective feedback.
For example, when a VR character named Ayanna first enters a lesson, Brueckmann said she will watch to see whether the student greets her appropriately, and the teacher’s view on the iPad will prompt her to confirm yes or no. If no, she said Ayanna will provide helpful feedback in the moment, such as, “Hello, I’m right here!”
Brueckmann said she can also choose to provide feedback herself, letting the student know, “There’s someone here, and we need to say hi to them. Let’s try that again.”
“That dual feedback, not only from me coaching in the moment, but also the feedback from the conversational partner, even though that conversational partner is virtual, is really helpful,” she said.
Teachers choose from a wide variety of conversation topics within each lesson, Brueckmann said, so the dialogue can be different every time. The company is now adding artificial intelligence-powered characters to its lessons so students can have free-flowing conversations as well, according to Floreo founder and CEO Vijay Ravindran.
“If a child decides to go off topic and talk about their favorite football team or Pokémon cards, the AI characters are adept enough to be able to reward that conversation for the child, which is important if they’re on the autism spectrum, and then have the ability to guide them back to whatever the learning goal was,” he said.
FUNDING FLOREO
Ravindran said in order to use Floreo, children ages 4 to 9 need a headset that can hold an iPhone to deploy the lesson, and children ages 10 and older need either a PICO or Meta Quest headset. He added that subscriptions to the Floreo library of VR lessons go for about $50 per student per month, and that the PICO and iPhone-holding headsets can be purchased separately or bundled with the subscription. The company is also offering Meta Quest headsets for free with a subscription.
“We’ve received a generous donation of Meta Quest headsets from Meta, and we are able to donate those to school districts in the U.S. that license Floreo,” Ravindran said. “So any school district that takes on Floreo is eligible if they have students in the eligible age range, which is 10 and above.”
He said his hope is that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will approve Floreo for medical use, so insurance can cover the cost of subscriptions and hardware. Some early research has shown Floreo might help not only children with autism, but also those with ADHD and anxiety, Ravindran said.
The company received the FDA’s breakthrough device designation in December 2023 based on an unpublished study that showed its content can reduce autism symptoms in children, Ravindran said. Floreo will apply for full FDA approval this spring, he added, upon completion of a larger study to replicate those effects.
“As we progress toward FDA approval, we’re looking to a future where state Medicaid plans will be covering Floreo in different ways, and school districts that access Medicaid dollars will then have access to mechanisms to have the full cost of our system covered,” he said.
