When my sister was in elementary school, the state of Illinois, or at least my particular school district, experimented with integrating the kids referred to as "Special Ed" into the general student populace. The only student I recall as part of this initiative was a boy in my sister's class, the grade below me, who had rather severe autism. While he had a teacher's aide with him at all times, students were also prevailed upon to help him out.
The treatments for autism at that point were rudimentary. I recall that he was frequently restrained during his tantrums. Even though he was a grade below me, his outbursts were loud enough to draw attention in other class rooms. I wish I could remember his name. I'm certain my sister could. He wouldn't make eye contact, and he could scarcely form words. There were a few occasions where he entered the classroom without any pants on. I don't think I witnessed those incidents, but because my sister was one of those students who regularly helped him with his work, I have vivid shared memories of him.
At the end of the year, the program was deemed to be a poor idea, and the student returned to separate classes. Almost twenty years later, my sister is in a PhD program studying autism in children. When she first showed me her research, I immediately started thinking about ways in which games could help the children she was studying.
Her particular area of research involves software that tracks eyes. People with autism have difficulty picking up on non-verbal social cues, and they often avoid eye contact. Children with autism, when they are shown pictures of people, demonstrate this avoidance with what they choose to focus on. The software picks up on the "hot spots" where subjects are looking, and children with autism do not have the same focus on the eyes as those children without autism.
There are games that address these issues. Children playing these games are able to learn more about facial expressions and eye contact without being placed in high pressure situations involving other unaffected children. These very simple games, which are essentially on the scope of casual games, can prove to be a great boon to parents and teachers coping with children with autism.
I don't think that such games can be the only format of game that can be beneficial to people with autism. At one end of the autism spectrum rests Asperger's Syndrome, which is characterized by less severe traits than autism and often an increased aptitude with numbers. Studies have shown that there is an increased incidence of autism and Asperger's in children in the Silicon Valley. One possible explanation that would come as no surprise to those who have dealt with a lot programmers is that many of those math and programming geniuses may have undiagnosed, mild cases of Asperger's. The stereotype is that programmers are socially inept, and it's quite possible that some of that social inability arises from Asperger's.
This brings me to MMOs. The elements of a game like World of Warcraft, the leveling and the numbers and the sense of achievement, are appealing to someone of a mathematic bend, particularly "geeks" who have been steered toward games their entire life. Anyone who has played WoW for long enough knows that social inability carries over into the game. People communicate with emoticons and "lol" has become a punctuation mark, and while such developments upset a language purist (read: obsessive compulsive), it occurred to me that it might be the ideal environment for people with Asperger's Syndrome to develop social skills.
Just as in the Flash games for younger children, the pressure of imminent social interaction is off. While people criticize MMOs for encouraging false socialization and further isolating teenagers and adults from the real world, a playground of avatars can help mitigate the fear and the sense of awkwardness that might arise from a social faux pas. Much as I hate to admit it, even games like Second Life have a real social benefit when seen from this perspective.
There's so much bad press for video games that I think people in the mainstream media often forget their great social potential. As one very angry game developer put it:
Why can't Call of Duty be actually about duty? Why isn't Medal of Honor about honor?
And why can't a massively multiplayer game be about actual social interaction? And why can't that carry over into the real world in beneficial way?
March 8th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Great Article.