Teens with autism to learn job skills from virtual training tool

High school teens anxiously await to reach their milestones: getting a driver's license, going on a date, attending prom and securing a job. But for the latter rite of passage, the task becomes more daunting for youths with autism spectrum disorder transitioning to the workforce. University of Michigan researcher Matthew Smith has devoted more than eight years to help young people with ASD gain employment through virtual job interview training, in partnership with tech-training company SIMmersion. As a follow-on to this work, the National Institute of Health awarded a $3 million grant to U-M, SIMmersion and Michigan State University to develop a virtual reality training tool for youth with ASD to improve their workplace social skills to help them keep the jobs the virtual interview training helps them earn. "One of the exciting things about this project is that we are working directly with the autism community, teachers, employers and diversity experts to develop an intervention that not only seeks to assist autistic youth to sustain employment, but is inclusive for autistic youth from diverse communities-an approach that is often overlooked,” said Smith, U-M associate professor of social work. The new training tool, Social Cognitive and Affective Learning for Work-provisionally available in 2022-is designed to help learners communicate effectively with customers, co-workers and supervisors within a virtual workday. SIMmersion chief operating officer Laura Humm said the firm is applying what they learned in past collaborations with Smith's Level Up: Employment Skills Simulation Lab at U-M.