The Correlation Among the Intelligence, Visual-Motor Skills and Virtual Reality Operation Performance of Students with Intellectual Disabilities

Introduction: Virtual reality (VR) provides a safe, customizable, and repetitive environment which is particularly suitable for individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) to learn. This study primarily explored the correlation among intelligence and visual-motor skills with performance in VR operations of students with ID. Methods: This study adopted a quasi-experimental research method in which 57 students with ID completed two trials of the tasks in the VR system, which automatically recorded the time spent on the task and the accuracy of performing the steps. Results: The results demonstrated that students with ID spent less time and obtained higher accuracy rates on the second trial than on the first trial in VR. In addition, full scale intelligence quotient and visual-motor integration positively correlated with the time spent on the first trial, but not on the second trial. The working memory index of students with ID positively correlated with accuracy on both the first and second trials. Conclusion: The findings indicated that students with ID possess the capability to navigate and interact with VR. Their performance in VR improved after practice, regardless of their intellectual and visual-motor integration abilities. Future research should focus on collecting more data to understand the learning curve of students with ID in VR environments.