Many designed systems have shown the potential of virtual reality (VR) to greatly transform autism treatment studies. Indeed, the literature shows that treatment via VR is appropriate for effective and repeatable training, without the intense anxiety, allowing trainees to recognize and modulate errors as they occur. This study evaluates the effectiveness of a new VR-based learning environment designed to safely practice and rehearse the daily activities related to the school world in children affected with autism. A total of nine children with autism actively enrolled in the study to learn and test their street crossing skills and social attention. Incremental change of difficulty levels has been added to the designed environment to generalize real-world situations, this includes overlaid distraction audio and increased vehicles intensity and speed. In order to enhance the learning experience, the real-time feedback is given according to the participant’s behavior, additionally, post processing profile is given for analysis purpose, where the participant’s behavior can be reviewed by parents and therapist to determine whether the participant’s mistakes are in decision making or focusing attention. The Wilcoxon signed-rank test for a single sample was used to test the change in the skills of participants with autism after using the educationally and therapeutically VR technology compared to a baseline. As a result, significant effects were found on the behavioral measures indicating that the VR-based learning environment is promoting a positive and informative learning environment.

This study aims to identify the nature and the extent of recent research studies on computational thinking in the Arab educational systems. The analyzed studies were gathered from English and Arabic educational sources. The selected publications were peer-reviewed journal articles over the past ten years that dealt with computational thinking in education in the Arab world. The selected studies were analyzed based on language, publication date, educational setting, educational discipline, site, primary purpose, research method, sample, and adopted definition of computational thinking. Twenty-eight research articles were selected for the investigation. The analysis revealed that the majority of the examined research studies were published in the Arabic language after the year 2020 in K-12 educational settings. The majority of the examined studies were conducted in programming and computer science in a few Arab countries. In addition, the majority of the examined studies focused on how to develop students’ computational thinking levels using various interventions. The majority of the studies employed a limited number of participants and used different forms of experimental research designs. The studies adopted different forms of the definition of computational thinking. Based on the findings, recommendations for future studies were presented.

Despite the recent surge in research on the use of AI in English language learning, little attention has been paid to its role in improving phonological awareness among preschoolers. Most existing studies have focused on general literacy skills or older learners, with insufficient emphasis on early phonemic awareness and its subskills. Furthermore, there is a lack of research examining these relationships within Arab or multilingual contexts. This study investigates the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) tools on the development of English phonological awareness in kindergarten children in an Arab educational context in Jordan using a quasi-experimental design. The participants comprised 45 students divided into two groups: a control group (n = 23), consisting of 14 females and 9 males, and an experimental group (n = 22), consisting of 12 females and 10 males. All participants were physically and mentally healthy 5–6 year-old children from similar socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. The experimental group was taught via the AI-based Starfall platform and the control group was taught via conventional teacher-oriented instruction. Both groups were given pre- and posttests, which included assessments of five phonemic awareness skills: initial sound recognition, blending, segmentation, deletion, and substitution. Descriptive statistics, including means and standard deviations, and independent-samples t-tests were calculated to determine the effect of the AI program on developing kindergarteners’ phonemic awareness compared with conventional teaching methods. The findings of the study show significant improvements in the experimental group compared with the control group. Bringing AI into the kindergarten classroom may improve literacy instruction and, in turn, early reading readiness through engaging, interactive and adaptive learning experiences.