After looking at adaptive VR systems and the use of immersive technology within air travel, I wanted to understand more specifically how VR is being used to support sensory and emotional regulation in autistic people. I found a systematic review that brought together 13 studies published between 2018 and 2025. The paper was particularly useful because, unlike much of the existing VR and autism research which focuses on social skills or emotion recognition, this review specifically examined emotion regulation and sensory regulation.

The review identified short-term benefits across a range of interventions, particularly reductions in anxiety, emotional lability and sensory hypersensitivity. The authors found that the most promising interventions tended to include personalisation, structured repetition, realistic environments, immersive exposure and physiological biofeedback. This is particularly relevant to my project because many of these qualities connect directly with issues already emerging from my research into autistic air travel: unpredictability, sensory overload, differing support needs and the importance of control.

Why VR?

One of the strongest arguments within the paper is that VR can create an environment that feels realistic while still allowing much greater control over what the user experiences. Visual complexity, sound, social demand and the intensity of different stimuli can all potentially be changed in ways that would be difficult or impossible within a real public environment. The review describes this as a useful middle ground between completely artificial exercises and real-world exposure, where unpredictability itself may cause anxiety or shutdown.

The paper also highlights that VR provides a sense of safety, privacy, comfort, control and customisability. For me, control is particularly important because it has repeatedly appeared throughout my primary and secondary research. Instead of asking an autistic traveller to simply tolerate an environment, VR potentially gives them more influence over how and when they experience difficult sensory information.

Two Different Uses of VR

One of the most interesting findings was that there appear to be two quite different approaches to regulation through VR.

The first is controlled or graded exposure. Several studies repeatedly introduced participants to sounds they found difficult within immersive environments, while still allowing them to disengage. Across these studies, participants generally reported reductions in distress and increased tolerance of the sounds over repeated sessions. Some studies also reported transfer into real-world situations.

This made me think again about sensory familiarisation before flying. Instead of only teaching somebody the steps of going through an airport, VR could potentially introduce the sensory experience of those stages as well. This might include security scanner beeps, airport announcements, trays hitting surfaces, boarding noises, aircraft engines or cabin sounds. The important difference would be that these could be experienced in a controlled setting where the traveller determines the pace, repetition and intensity.

The second approach is almost the opposite: self-led calming and regulation. Rather than deliberately presenting something difficult, the VR environment becomes somewhere the person can withdraw into and regulate themselves.

For my project, I think this second direction may eventually be even more important.

The Evenness Virtual Sensory Room

One study within the review particularly stood out to me. Mills et al. (2023) developed Evenness, a virtual version of a sensory room. Rather than following a structured exposure programme, users were able to interact freely with familiar sensory stimuli and use the environment according to their own needs.

The study involved 31 adults, including 12 autistic adults, who used the platform an average of six times over five months. Reduced anxiety was the most commonly reported benefit, alongside reductions in depression and improvements in sensory profile scores. The study is small and cannot prove that a virtual sensory room will work for every autistic person, but the concept is extremely relevant to my own thinking.

Earlier in my airport research, I questioned whether shared sensory rooms actually provide enough personal control. One participant in my primary research described Sunflower lounges as often being open, loud and not sufficiently tailored to autistic sensory needs. A virtual sensory environment potentially approaches this problem differently. Instead of expecting everybody within a shared room to find the same physical environment calming, each person could potentially access their own sensory environment.

This does not mean that I have decided to create a virtual sensory room. However, it provides an important precedent showing that the idea of translating a physical sensory room into an individually experienced VR environment has already been explored with autistic adults.

Sound and Sensory Familiarisation

The research around auditory hypersensitivity was also particularly interesting. Four of the sensory-regulation studies focused on difficult sounds, using head-mounted VR systems to provide controlled exposure.

The SoundFields project used 360-degree binaural spatial audio to recreate problematic sounds within an immersive environment. Sounds included alarms, fireworks, crying babies and household equipment. Participants could repeatedly encounter these sounds within the controlled VR experience. A later study found that reductions in anxiety were maintained four weeks afterwards and that the effects were stronger with immersive spatial audio than with ordinary stereo sound.

This is very relevant to the idea I had around acclimatisation to air travel. It suggests that the immersive audio component itself may matter, rather than simply playing someone a recording from a phone or laptop.

Again, I would want to be careful about presenting this as simply teaching an autistic person to “put up with” an uncomfortable environment. What interests me more is voluntary familiarisation, where the traveller controls what they experience and can stop, repeat or adjust it.

Personalisation and Biofeedback

Personalisation appeared repeatedly across the review. Some systems allowed users to choose the particular sensory triggers they wanted to work with, while others adapted according to breathing patterns, physiological responses or the user's performance. Autistic participants were also given control over pacing and scenario content in some interventions.

This connects directly to the adaptive VR research I looked at previously. It suggests that personalisation does not have to mean simply selecting a preset “calming scene”. An immersive system could potentially become more responsive to the person using it.

This is where I can see the connection between my three recent VR papers becoming clearer:

Adaptive VR research shows that virtual environments can respond to behavioural and physiological data.

The air-travel metaverse research demonstrates that personalised immersive technology is already being explored within air travel.

This systematic review provides broader evidence that VR can support sensory and emotional regulation through personalisation, controlled exposure, repetition, biofeedback and self-led calming.

Together, these papers make the VR direction feel much less speculative.

Regulation as a Gateway to Participation

Another finding I found particularly useful was the idea that regulation is not simply an isolated outcome. Across several studies, improvements in sensory or emotional regulation were associated with improvements in participation in other areas of life, including school, work and social situations.

The authors suggest that regulation can operate as a gateway to participation. If somebody is overwhelmed, their ability to communicate, make decisions, interact with other people or remain within an environment can become more difficult. Reducing that dysregulation may therefore enable them to participate more independently.

This connects extremely closely to my air-travel research. My project is ultimately interested in independent international travel, not simply making somebody feel calmer. If better regulation allows an autistic traveller to remain engaged with the journey, make decisions, communicate when needed and continue travelling independently, then regulation may be supporting independence rather than being a separate issue.

Limitations

The review also has some important limitations. Ten of the 13 studies primarily involved children or adolescents, with only three focusing on autistic adults. Samples were also disproportionately male, meaning autistic women remain poorly represented. This is especially relevant to my research because I am specifically interested in independent autistic adults, and most participants in my own primary research were women.

Another important limitation is the lack of autistic co-design. Only a small minority of the interventions reviewed were developed collaboratively with autistic people. This is something I would need to consider carefully if I developed an immersive experience myself. A personalised system should not simply use technology to decide what an autistic person needs; the user should retain agency over what the system does.

The paper also notes practical accessibility issues around VR itself. Heavy headsets, immersive equipment and sensory intensity can create barriers of their own. Therefore, VR should not automatically be assumed to be more accessible simply because the environment within it can be controlled.

Reflection

This paper has significantly strengthened the VR direction because it has helped me understand what VR could actually contribute that another information app could not.

Its strength appears to lie in creating an immersive environment where sensory information can be precisely controlled, repeated and personalised. It can potentially support both pre-travel sensory familiarisation and in-the-moment self-regulation, while emerging adaptive technologies could allow the experience to respond dynamically to the individual.

The finding I find most important is that sensory regulation may act as a gateway to wider participation. Within my project, this could mean that the purpose of regulation is not simply to make an autistic passenger “calmer”. It could enable them to remain independent and continue participating in the journey when the real airport environment becomes difficult to manage.

I am therefore beginning to see two possible roles for immersive technology:

Before travel: controlled sensory familiarisation and repetition of unfamiliar airport or aircraft experiences.

During travel: personalised regulation when the real environment becomes overwhelming.

I do not yet know whether these should become one system, whether one is more valuable than the other, or whether VR will ultimately be the right outcome at all. However, this research gives me much stronger evidence for continuing to investigate the possibility.

The question I am now carrying forward is: Could immersive technology give autistic travellers a personally controlled way to regulate during air travel, particularly when the external environment itself cannot be changed?

Using Virtual Reality to Support Emotion and Sensory Regulation in Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Review — Zarins, Petropoulou & Gekas, 2026.