It has long been reported that children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) exhibit attention difficulties while learning. They tend to focus on irrelevant information and can easily be distracted. As a result, they are often confined to a one-to-one teaching environment, with fewer distractions and social interactions than would be present in a mainstream educational setting. In recent years, inclusive mainstream schools have been growing in popularity due to government policies on equality rights. Therefore, it is crucial to investigate attentional patterns of children with ASD in mainstream schools. This study aims to explore the attentional behaviors of children with ASD in a virtual reality simulated classroom. We analyzed four eye-gaze behaviors and performance scores of 45 children: children with ASD (ASD n = 20) and typically developing children (TD n = 25) when performing attention tasks. The gaze behaviors included time to first fixate (TTFF), first fixation duration (FFD), average fixation duration (AFD) and the sum of fixation count (SFC) on fourteen areas of interest (AOIs) in the classroom. Our results showed that children with ASD exhibit similar gaze behaviors to TD children, but with significantly lower performance scores and SFC on the target AOI. These findings showed that classroom settings can influence attentional patterns and the academic performance of children with ASD. Further studies are needed on different modalities for supporting the attention of children with ASD in a mainstream setting.

长期以来，有报道称自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童在学习时表现出注意力困难。他们倾向于关注无关的信息，并且很容易分心。结果，它们通常局限于一对一的教学环境，与主流教育环境相比，它们的干扰和社交互动更少。近年来，由于政府关于平等权利的政策，包容性主流学校越来越受欢迎。因此，调查主流学校中自闭症儿童的注意力模式至关重要。这项研究旨在探讨在虚拟现实模拟教室中ASD儿童的注意行为。我们分析了45名儿童的4种注视行为和表现得分：ASD（ASD n = 20），并且 在执行注意力任务时通常会发育成儿童（TD n = 25）。注视行为包括教室中14个感兴趣区域（AOI）的首次注视时间（TTFF），第一次注视时间（FFD），平均注视时间（AFD）和注视总数（SFC）。我们的结果表明，患有ASD的儿童表现出与TD儿童相似的凝视行为，但目标AOI的表现得分和SFC明显较低。这些发现表明，教室的设置可以影响注意力障碍和自闭症儿童的学习成绩。在主流环境下，需要进一步研究以不同的方式来支持ASD儿童的注意力。