Abstract
Extended Reality (XR) technologies have seen a drastic increase in use with autism treatment within the last decade. The real time adaptive environments of Virtual Reality (VR) especially have spearheaded the dialogue discussing the future of autism treatment. However, a sizable portion of VR environments undergoing research trials rely heavily on a behaviorist framework of autism rather than a cognitive one and that has the potential to cause harm to autistic participants. This paper reviews the viability of behaviorist VR simulations in autism treatment in order to propose an alternate design philosophy that incorporates principles of neurodiversity and the social model of disability. First, autistic researchers and autistic people are the utmost authority on the nature of autism and the theories of autism developed by them are essential for the autistic design process. Second, behaviorism is an ineffective method of treatment and poses many ethical complications especially in conjunction with autism. Third, there are accessibility issues with VR though despite that, has many use cases in the realm of psychology. Lastly, criteria based on autonomy, inclusivity, harm reduction, and modern autism research evaluate VR simulations to gage adherence to neurodiversity principles. Collectively the information will form a cohesive argument against strict behaviorism in VR and provide a more effective neurodiversity framework for design.