ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Virtual Real.
Sec. Virtual Reality and Human Behaviour
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/frvir.2025.1629297
This article is part of the Research TopicEnabling EnvironmentsView all 8 articles
Energy Expenditure During Virtual Reality Exergaming in Adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Provisionally accepted
- 1Department of Anatomy, New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine, Old Westbury, NY, United States
- 2Center for Biomedical Innovation, New York Institute of Technology School of Health Professions, Old Westbury, NY, United States
- 3Department of Occupational Therapy, New York Institute of Technology School of Health Professions, Old Westbury, NY, United States
- 4Department of Biomedical Sciences, New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine, Old Westbury, NY, United States
- 5Inclusive Sports and Fitness, Holbrook, NY, United States
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Children and adolescents with Autism Spectrum Disorder face challenges throughout their development. Autism Spectrum Disorder can affect a multitude of areas, including social, cognitive, and physical. Due to delays in development, poor motor coordination, hypersensitivities, and difficulties with motivation and focus, these individuals are uninspired and discouraged to partake in physical activity. This lack of interest can lead to further impairments in health and developing social skills. This study evaluated the effect of virtual reality on exercise, specifically the effects on actual energetic output and perceived energetic output. Eleven participants aged 8–19 with Level 1 Autism Spectrum Disorder completed two walking trials on a treadmill. The control trial did not have participants wear a virtual reality headset or interact with any games. The virtual reality trial allowed participants to play an interactive virtual reality game while walking on the treadmill. To measure actual metabolic output, energetic costs were measured by calculating cost of locomotion, cost of transport, and youth metabolic equivalents via open flow respirometry. To measure perceived levels of exertion, participants were asked to rate their exertion level using the Borg Rating of Perceived Exertion scale throughout the duration of the trials. Results showed a statistically significant increase in all energetic measures during the virtual reality walking trials compared to the control trials (all p-values < 0.020). Differences in perceived exertion were not statistically significant between the two experimental conditions. These findings suggest that in this patient population, virtual reality can help promote more intense and energetically costly physical activity, while having no effect on perceived exertion levels. These findings may be explained by multiple factors, including virtual reality acting as a distractor, the novelty aspect, or the effects of dual-task cognitive and motor activity.
Keywords: virtual reality, Autism Spectrum Disorder, energetics, exergaming, Occupational Therapy
Received: 15 May 2025; Accepted: 14 Oct 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chernik, Gonzalez, Stout and Lopez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence:
Noah David Chernik, nchernik@nyit.edu
Alexander Lopez, alopez@nyit.edu
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