The influence of virtual reality on playfulness in children with cerebral palsy: a pilot study

The purpose of this paper was to examine the effects of virtual play intervention on the level of playfulness of children with cerebral palsy. Thirteen children aged 8-13 years comprised the study group. Children attended eight one-hour virtual reality play sessions in which they were immersed and interacted with virtual reality. The Test of Playfulness (TOP) was used as the measure to assess playfulness. Participants were videotaped while they played during 12 different environments over the course of their intervention time. Three randomly selected virtual reality play sessions were chosen to score three different virtual reality environments within each session yielding a total of nine trials (environments) for each participant. The types of virtual environments varied across participants. Overall, the different virtual reality play environments produced varying levels of playfulness according to the TOP's four different subscale scores. Motivation ranged from 1.50 to 2.25, internal control ranged from 1.00 to 1.88, suspension of reality ranged from 0 to 0.26, and framing ranged from 1.33 to 1.78. The three environments producing the highest playfulness ratings were called Paint, Trip and Island Sounds. These environments allowed creativity, persistence with the task, pleasure, and a certain degree of control. Two environments did not appear to foster playfulness. A possible reason was that these environments were too unpredictable and frustrating for participants. These results will be useful for creating new virtual reality software applications that will encourage playfulness in children with disabilities.