Roshan L. Peiris | Searcharxiv

arXiv2026

From Grasping to Speaking: Generative AI-Based Environment-Grounded VR Communication Training for Autistic Individuals

Autistic individuals often face barriers in workplace communication, where soft skills are embedded within ongoing tasks and surrounding environment context, not in isolated verbal exchange. Recent work has introduced LLM-driven agents into VR-based communication training and proposed prompting schemas that let agents generate dialogue grounded in the VR environment and the user's hand-based interactions. Building on this work, we explore how different levels of environmental grounding influence the training experience of autistic trainees and job coaches. We conducted an exploratory study with 9 autistic trainees and 7 job coaches across three modalities: conversation-only (C), conversation with environmental objects (C+O), and conversation with objects and grasp interactions (C+O+G). Usability and workload were comparable across modalities, while both trainees and coaches preferred the more interactive and environment-grounded condition (C+O+G). Participants viewed C+O+G as helpful for sustaining engagement and integrating communication practice into task performance. We discuss design considerations for more flexible, interactive, and workplace-relevant VR communication training for autistic individuals.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2026

Evaluating the Feasibility of Augmented Reality to Support Communication Access for Deaf Students in Experiential Higher Education Contexts

Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) students often experience communication barriers in higher education, which are particularly acute in experiential learning environments such as laboratories. Traditional accessibility services, such as interpreting and captioning, often require DHH students to divide their attention between critical tasks, potential safety hazards, instructional materials, and access providers, creating trade-offs between safety and equitable communication. These demands can disrupt task engagement and increase cognitive load in settings that require sustained visual focus, highlighting the limitations of current approaches. To address these challenges, this study investigates Augmented Reality Real-Time Access for Education (ARRAE), an ecosystem based on augmented reality (AR) smart glasses, as a potential intervention for laboratory-based environments. By overlaying interpreters or captions directly into a student's field of view, AR enables the integration of accessibility into hands-on learning without compromising safety or comprehension. Through an empirical study with 12 DHH participants, we evaluate how AR-mediated access influences visual attention patterns and perceived cognitive load during hands-on tasks. The findings suggest that AR-mediated communication shows strong potential to improve attention management and communication accessibility in experiential learning environments, though participants emphasized that accessibility preferences are highly context-dependent. Participants also identified several design and ergonomic challenges, including display positioning, visual fatigue, and compatibility with hearing devices. Together, these results highlight both the promise of AR for supporting accessible participation in visually demanding environments and key design considerations for future systems.

cs.HC↗