How virtual reality helps us understand attentionnal processes among healthy children

The ClinicaVR: Classroom Vigil-CPT is an ecological tool which gives a picture of attentional components. Sixty-one healthy children, divided in three age groups, were evaluated using the traditional and virtual version of the CPT Vigil. The results confirmed the heterogeinity of maturation of specific attention components. The Virtual Reality (VR) showed the same developmental trajectories for sustained/selective attention and for inhibition responses. However, the VR seemed to be more accurate in evaluating processing speed (reaction time). These results are interesting for clinicians who work with a clinical children population, since we know that the majority of neurodevelopmental or acquired disorders present a cognitive slow down. More studies are needed to explore this question. Keywords: Attention, Processing Speed, Children, ClinicaVR: Classroom, Virtual Classroom