Floreo VR: teaching social and communication skills to individuals on the autism spectrum

Once diagnosed, a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and his/her family face hours per week of social, communication, motor, and behavioral therapies delivered by a variety of professionals. The therapies range from teaching building block skills like eye contact to handling increasingly complicated social situations in which a person with autism might struggle. The cost and logistical challenges for a family are immense. Depending on a family’s health insurance and state Medicaid program, coverage for services that can cost in the range of $50,000 a year out of pocket can be inadequate or nonexistent. Depending on where a child lives, the family might face long commutes to get the services needed. As an example, the Missouri HHS reported that in 2017, 75% of counties lacked a single licensed autism therapist.

What if you could use virtual reality to create content that helped kids with basic social skills like eye contact? What if you could build complex virtual environments to practice and role play social situations? What if this could be done while also allowing an adult using a device like an iPad monitor and actively coach a person with ASD while that person is in a virtual reality environment? And what if this product gave a parent superpowers to step into helping their child like never before? That’s Floreo. Built to achieve real world results using VR, simple enough for a parent to use, and with a monthly price less than an hour of therapy utilizing the smartphone in our pocket, a standard iPad, and $15 VR headset.

We have developed an app that uses Virtual Reality to provide a supplementary method of teaching social and communication skills for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Our library of lessons is fun and engaging for the learner.

Floreo is designed to be a supervised experience. While the Learner experiences the lesson through a mobile VR headset in conjunction with an iPhone, an adult Coach guides the lesson in real-time via an iPad. We have three different types of lessons: building social connections, managing real-life interactions, and calming/practicing mindfulness. Floreo is currently being used by schools, therapy practices, and parents.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdlrWS7Gg_I