Virtual reality programs targeting executive functions and social cognition evaluation and/or rehabilitation in...

Various studies have underlined the possible effectiveness of innovative techniques, such as virtual reality (VR), during the assessment or the rehabilitation of cognition in clinical pediatric populations. This study aims to (a) review the VR environments designed to assess and/or enhance executive functions (EFs) and theory of mind (ToM) domains in children and adolescents with neurodevelopmental disorders and (b) evaluate the sensitivity and the efficacy of these VR tools. Following an overview of these studies (e.g., purpose and results), our study has two further goals: (1) to provide the methodological dimensions of each study (target skills/processes and clinical populations), and (2) to highlight the VR characteristics (e.g., sense of presence and immersive experience, the user's point of view) implemented in the selected articles. A total of 75 studies published between 1996 and 2022 and fulfilling the selected criteria were found on database platforms such as PubMed or Science Direct. Our review demonstrates that VR could be useful as an assessment and training tool for cognitive and social impairments in pediatric clinical populations. However, the numerous clinical and VR designs highlight the need to develop a more systematic evaluation of VR programs to define what really works, especially in terms of generalization to more naturalistic settings.