All children learn at different paces, in different ways, and will need varying amounts of support throughout their education. Students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) face many additional barriers to their learning and can require a much greater amount of specialist support and provision than their peers.
The development of innovative education technology has made a big difference, allowing teachers to provide additional support to SEND students tailored to meet their specific needs. One of the technologies having a positive impact on SEND students is Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR).
VR/AR can help in a variety of ways. Not only can it support SEND students who learn in specialised education settings, but it can also support SEND students while they are in mainstream settings.
The use of VR/AR in classrooms around the world is already making a difference to student outcomes, both in terms of academic results and skills development. In this piece we will explore the role that VR/AR can play in special education, and the potential of the technology to support SEND students with a wide range of needs.
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The benefits of VR/AR in education
An early study into virtual reality summed up what makes the technology unique: “At its core, VR offers a departure from the tangible, allowing users to delve into an environment transcending conventional reality.”
It’s no wonder then that, as the technology has developed and improved, its potential in education has been increasingly realised. Having the ability to take students out of the classroom and into a different learning environment can have many benefits, and with a virtual environment there are no limits to the possibilities.
Today, VR/AR is being used in classrooms around the world as a vehicle to help deliver exciting and impactful lessons across a range of subjects. VR/AR is a powerful teaching tool that lets students learn through experience thanks to its combination of immersive and interactive features. From the safety of the classroom, students can travel the world, explore complex concepts, and experience learning in a completely new way.
This immersive experience creates more associations between subjects and environments than other teaching methods, helping students to better understand, engage with and remember their learning. Studies have shown that VR can also help increase knowledge retention, boost engagement, focus attention, build emotional intelligence and improve communication and collaboration skills.
More recently, there is growing evidence that VR/AR can have particular benefits for students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
How can VR/AR benefit SEND students?
VR/AR can be seen as an ‘assistive technology’ in education, in that it has the potential to support students with a broad range of learning difficulties, physical disabilities and/or sensory impairments.
As we have seen, VR/AR can give all students experiences outside of the norm, but for SEND students, the technology offers many opportunities they might never get to have otherwise.
One study described VR as a ‘promising tool’ for providing education to SEND students:
“For students with learning difficulties, anxiety disorders, and other mental illnesses, VR can provide personalised and adaptive learning environments that can help students improve cognitive engagement and academic performance. And, for children with emotional disorders or disabilities, VR provides contexts that can teach them skills for communicating with others and managing their emotions, thereby developing empathy and stimulating affective engagement.”
Let’s look at some specific ways in which VR/AR can support students with SEND.
Transforming visual learning
Students with language-based learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, can find it difficult to access lessons that are based on reading and words. Some might read slowly, struggle to decode their reading, or find it hard to understand what they have read. Others might have difficulties understanding spoken instruction or expressing their thoughts in writing or in speech.
Visual learning, where learning is achieved through visual means such as images, graphics, videos and maps, can help students overcome these barriers. With VR/AR, visual learning is taken to a new, more powerful dimension. Using VR, you can create interactive scenes in which the student is not just a viewer but an active participant. Using AR, images can be taken from the page or screen and turned into 3D objects that the student can hold in their hand and examine up close in incredible detail.
Visiting exciting new locations
Visiting locations outside the classroom can enhance the learning experience across many subjects, but for students with physical disabilities, or those with anxiety disorders, these kinds of excursions are not always possible.
With VR, students can be transported to a variety of virtual environments without ever leaving the classroom. In history lessons, students can tour ancient cities or battlefields, in geography they can explore famous landmarks up close, in science they can visit the surface of the moon, and in English they can step into the pages of a novel or play and interact with the characters.
Building familiarity
Autistic and neurodiverse students can struggle to adapt to new and unfamiliar environments. This can be especially difficult when making the transition between educational settings, and can be a barrier for students wanting to undertake work experience.
VR can help prepare students for these experiences by recreating the settings virtually, allowing them to build familiarity with a location and its layout before visiting it in real life.
Emotional regulation
Some disabilities can mean students struggle with sensory overload or distress, particularly in a busy school environment. For example, noisy corridors and changes to routines can make some autistic students feel overstimulated.
With VR, teachers can provide support to help these students regulate their emotions, for example with sensory settings that can instil a sense of calm. These can include virtual sensory rooms with colourful lights and bubbles, or natural soundscapes, such as a spot by a waterfall.
Clearing distractions
Distractions are a constant presence in the world today, but for ADHD students, they can have a big impact on their ability to focus their attention on lessons.
With a VR headset, potential distractions can be significantly reduced, as students only see the virtual environment on which the lesson is based.
Mainstreaming’ SEND students
In recent years, one of the ambitions of education systems around the world has been to educate SEND students in mainstream settings as much as possible. Known as ‘mainstreaming’, this process can help close the attainment gap between SEND students and their peers, as well as improve their social skills. The challenge for schools and teachers is how to implement this integrated learning successfully, especially when resources might be limited and budgets tight.
VR/AR has the potential to help some SEND students access education in mainstream classrooms. It can also help some students to feel emotionally self-regulated so that they are able to take part in a mainstream classroom for part of their day.
What do teachers think of VR/AR in SEND?
Teachers are finding innovative ways to use VR/AR to support their SEND students in the classroom and make their learning experience more engaging and accessible.
Westhaven School in North Somerset, England is a special educational needs school that’s been enhancing learning and improving accessibility using virtual reality since 2021.
Using VR, Westhaven can meet the individual needs of each student by creating specific learning contexts. For example, the teachers have found that VR is a particularly engaging tool for some of their students with autism, who enjoy exploring virtual worlds in their free time. By immersing them with the headsets, staff have been capturing these students’ attention and truly engaging them in lessons.
“The kids love VR,” explains Endre Gal, Network Manager at Westhaven School. “Especially our autistic students, the boys in particular, who enjoy exploring these online worlds like Minecraft. They’re really attracted to this environment. When they use VR, they’re completely immersed and engaged in the experience. It’s such a powerful tool.”
At Spaulding Academy & Family Services in New Hampshire, USA, a teacher found he could record his own virtual environment specifically designed for one student’s specific sensory needs. As the student found the sensation of swinging on a swing to be emotionally regulating, Charley Suter, a Digital Learning Specialist, took a 360-degree video of himself swinging, then uploaded the video. The student was then able to enjoy the visual stimulation of swinging through the headset.
“When using the device, our student has repeatedly communicated a desire to continue swinging – even when presented with other preferred options,” says Mr Suter. “The student is able to more successfully return to classroom programming after use, and he has been
Why bring VR/AR to SEND teaching?
At its core, special education is about meeting each student’s particular needs, helping them to learn, to thrive and to meet their full potential. The barriers that must be overcome to achieve that can be many and varied.
VR/AR provides a unique opportunity to support SEND students and give them what they need, whether that’s sensory stimulation, an accessible adventure or practice with daily tasks.
VR/AR is an exciting, innovative addition to teachers’ toolsets of resources as they strive to help all students access the education and opportunities they deserve.
