Adapting Virtual Reality Job Interview Training for Transition-Age Youth on the Autism Spectrum

Introduction: Virtual reality job interview training (VR-JIT) is an efficacious internet-based intervention designed for adults with severe mental illness(SMI). Evaluations of VR-JIT have shown improved interview skill and access to employment in several cohorts of adults with SMI and adults with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). VR-JIT provides trainees with an opportunity to engage in a text-based curriculum about interview strategies, and repetitively practice job interviews with a virtual hiring manager. Trainees receive 3 levels of feedback about the trainee’s performance, including: (1) in-the-moment nonverbal cues; (2) a scripted critique of each interview statement, and (3) recommendations to improve performance across 8 competencies. Our study sought to adapt VR-JIT to meet the needs of transition-age youth with ASD.

Methods: We recruited n=24 transition-age youth with ASD (ages 16-21) and n=21 adult stakeholders from public and charter schools, transition programming, and community service providers. Participants completed 4 visits reviewing the core components of VR-JIT (Interview Basics Curriculum; Interview Tutorial; Mock Job Application; and Virtual Interview) and then provided feedback on the intervention design, content, and recommendations to improve various aspects of VR-JIT. To adapt VR-JIT for transition-age youth with ASD, we used a three-stage approach: (1) Collecting and analyzing experiential and expert opinion data from the transition-age youth with ASD and adult stakeholders (employed adults with ASD, parents of individuals with ASD, transition teachers of students with ASD, and potential employers of individuals with ASD); (2) Presenting experiential and expert opinion data to a Community Advisory Board, a Scientific Advisory Board, and to the intervention developers for review and recommendations; and (3) Adapting intervention design and content. We used both survey and textual data from transition-age youth and adult stakeholders. Two independent coders analyzed the data. Supervised by a third coder, they synthesized key elements for adaptation (i.e., tailoring, adding, removing, and shortening core VR-JIT components – Stirman et al., 2013). The findings were presented to the Boards and developers who helped solidify final adaptations. 

Results: Building off our experiential and expert recommendations, the final adaptations included: 1) adding one male and one female of African-American and/or Latinx to diversify the hiring manager; 2) shorten the interview from 25 minutes to 15 minutes or less by reducing the number of response options from 15 statements to 5-10 statements; 3) increase social storytelling to enhance the interview basics curriculum; 4) increase the number of employment opportunities relevant for younger workers; 5) enhance the acceptability of the feedback system by using a reduced reading level, and adding bullet points, voiceover, and imagery/video; and 6) adding new scoring objectives to highlight strengths and areas for growth.

Discussion: This study presents a rigorous and innovative methodology to adapt VR-JIT to meet the needs of transition-age youth with ASD. We will discuss the process of adaptation where we engaged end users (youth with ASD), supporting stakeholders (adults with ASD, parents, teachers, employers). We will discuss our application of the Stirman adaptation framework to use tailoring, adding, removing, and shortening aspects of VR-JIT. The limitations of this methodology will also be discussed.