Immersive virtual reality training to identify and investigate child abuse: A review of emerging progress and future directions

Tanvi Reddy ^1* Shreya Mona Sinha ^2*

• ¹ Westwood High School, Austin, United States
• ² Yale School of Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, New Haven, United States

Child abuse is a pervasive global issue with enduring consequences, and conversations with children are central to its detection and intervention. However, these conversations involve significant complexities, and professionals across legal, medical, and educational settings often report feeling insufficiently prepared to navigate them. Similarly, forensic interviewers are shown to frequently employ coercive questioning techniques, compromising the validity of children's testimonies in court.Traditional training methods to elicit reliable verbal disclosures have remained ineffective, driving interest in using immersive virtual reality (VR) to provide simulated conversations with child victims. To assess the existing evidence base, a reproducible systematic search was conducted across APA PsycInfo, PsycArticles, PubMed, Mendeley, and Google Scholar. While early studies suggest immersive VR training improves professionals' engagement and learning outcomes, the empirical validation remains weak, indicating critical gaps for future studies to address. This scoping review synthesizes emerging research on immersive VR for child protection training, evaluating its effectiveness, limitations, and methodological rigor across professional contexts.