Can we use video games to improve social skills in Autism?

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Can we use video games to improve social skills in Autism?

That's the question that I REALLY want a definitive answer to! I am eager to hear everyone's opinion on this.

I am a Cognitive Neuroscientist that has studied teamwork in healthy and clinical populations for a decade. I am trying to get a project funded that will create a suite of games that measure and ENHANCE social skills in children with social impairments.

Please check it out and let me know what you think!

Roger
twitter: RogerNewNor
facebook: Autism Video Game Proje

From my experience, I've gone years without any meaningful convo with people I met through games. I've met a few good friends though. My real-life social skills fell off tremendously after complete isolation with online gaming. I'm more of a person who keeps to himself, so that is definitely a factor. Online gaming has given me a bit of a social life though, even if it's just talking to a guy on skype a few times a week.

Yes! I actually wrote an essay on my experiences with a game franchise called Mass Effect and how it affects my autism. It's essentially a review of the trilogy with the added personal element of my autism. Its called Camaraderie in Space, you should find it on the Interwebs. It is a tad melodramatic at times, but I hope you can get something out of it. I found your crowdfunding page and I really like the idea behind it. I would love to hear how you progress with it.

I find that it stays the same, in my case.

I'm just as silent in most online games as I am with in-person conversations. Makes team-based games a bit harder, because I dont really want to say anything.... which works out well, as in most cases I have nothing useful to say anyway.

For competetive games I often just mute all incoming voice chat, particularly since online gaming communities tend to be extremely toxic.

Which I think is something you should keep in mind, considering the subject you are gathering info for. Online gaming often turns otherwise friendly people into shrieking jackasses. Tends to very much NOT be a healthy place, as far as social anything goes.

Co-op only games are usually not AS bad, but still bad enough; dont play well enough, or dont KNOW enough, and many teams will just yell at you.

Yes i developed VERY heavily socially when i started playing WoW back in the old days..Though i am still shy at first in online games. These days i prefer MMOs over alot of other genres and mainly play FFXIV(good community by and large)..But yeah my mom even promotes it now.

I find that using the voice chat things like ventrilo can help with social skills a little. It gives you a chance to practice conversation in a mostly non-hostile setting. I do find a lot of the time though that talking on those things is way harder than talking or socializing in real life, just because with everyone talking it is hard to get a word in without interrupting someone (I have no idea how people know when its their "turn" to talk on stuff like that).

i've actually gotten over my fear of asking for help because of TF2. whether you're using voice commands or voicechat, there's always a way to ask for help, and there's almost always someone nearby to come and help you
personally, i play engineer alot, and if i ever think a spy is nearby ready to ruin my set up, i can just call for help, and a pyro or demoman will be over in seconds to help me get the spy. and even if i'm wrong, nobody gets mad at me, which was what i've always been afraid of when asking for help. infact, me and the other player will usually goof around if we dont find a spy.

To me, I've found it easier to communicate through text since it gives me the time I need to think my thoughts through and articulate myself better (and without slurring my words). So I did learn a lot about social skills while playing MMO games. For example, how to effectively lead a group by watching others do so (or watching others fail) and various nuances of conversation (though it's somewhat rare to meet someone who can converse politely in an MMO nowadays). Heck, even The Sims taught me a bit about social nuances, though its potential is arguably minimal.

But I have to say that gaming could help teach social skills in a non threatening way.

Hm...I do believe videogames have the potential to prove social skills. But it depends on the game of choice, as well as whom you play with. Playing with strangers tends to be a wild card, but you're gonna have more luck playing with people you know. Four people playing a team-based game like Left4Dead or Black Ops Zombies consistently can be seen as a sort of exercise in communication, if everyone is mic'd up. LAN parties could be the next step up from this.

Most of my social life is through online games. I feel that the ability to talk via text (which I'm more comfortable doing) and the tendency for ingame conversations to stay limited to in-game topics helps a lot for me. It's basically, these people have the same interest as me (the game) so it's not considered as weird for me to only talk about it with them. I generally don't make deep emotional connections with these people or talk about real life things, but that's fine with me.

I find that the more time I spend playing online games, or really any other sort of games where I'm not directly in the same room as another person, the less social I become. It's hard for me to communicate and play games at the same time, and I refuse to use a headset because I don't want other people to hear me get frustrated or start raging, which is somewhat common for me on competitive online games.

That said, I don't really do online games anymore. Nowadays I generally prefer singleplayer stuff, because computer opponents tend to be more predictable and less rage-inducing than human ones, and in many games I can adjust the difficulty so that I can make things easier if they get too intense.