Effect of a 360 Degrees Panoramic Image System (360 PIS) on the Environment Recognition of Students with Moderate and Severe Mental Retardation in Special Education School

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to explore if students with moderate and severe mental retardation could take advantage of 360 PIS to enhance action capability in the environment? The study adopted an experimental design of multiple-probe-across-subject. The targets were four students with moderate and severe mental retardation from a special education school. The independent variable was the teaching system of "The Environment Introduction of Yangming Park by 360 PISrdquo and the dependent variable were the learning results of the students on the 360 PIS, the ability of the students to recognize the real scenes after learning from the 360 PIS and to act independently in the real environment. Each student had to go through three stages of experiment: baseline, intervention and generalization period. The results of experiments were as follows: 1. After teaching, students with moderate and severe mental retardation could operate the 360 PIS and reach the learning level of proficiency. 2. Students with moderate and severe mental retardation could recognize the environment on 360 PIS. They could name the scenes and the locations of related passages on the panoramic image. Furthermore, they also could categorize the results from virtual to real environment, named the scenes and found out locations of passages. 3. Students with moderate and severe mental retardation could walk through two trails independently on 360 PIS and generalized the results from cyberspace to not yet experienced environment and walked through two trails.