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

Post Reply New Topic

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 Project

Don't you have to show in a scientific studies that a game can 'enhance' social skills, before you market said games?

Cart, horse.

If a video game involves "social stories," perhaps with some perks, I don't see how that could do any harm.

Depends how he markets it. If a parent buys these games thinking they are helping their child and they have no improvement effect whatsoever, its a scam.

Stating something will ''ENHANCE" an autistic persons social skills without scientific evidence to prove it makes this just another of the SNAKEOILS being peddled on a increasingly publicized and targeted disability group.

As someone who have games as its main interest i think it really depends of the game.
I've been playing World of Warcraft for something like 5~6 years and from almost 4 of those years the only "social contact' i had was basically from the people i was playing with.
I remembered that in the beggining i hated the idea of a game where i was too dependent of other persons to do the important stuff (i still don't like this idea and the only game i got used to it was WoW) but because i liked the game i ended up adapting myself to it. But even after all those years, WoW and its social aspects aren't what i like to do when i want to play something with someone else.
World of Warcraft (as almost every other MMO) forces the interaction between players since it's impossible to kill bosses and do any other "hardcore" stuff just by yourself. This may sound like a good idea but that's why i said it depends of the game.
Most of the times when i go play something, i want to relax my mind and have "my fun" and that means i want to play something alone. When that's the case i go play any RPG/action/adventure/plataform game on my consoles.
When i think about having fun with someone else it's because i don't want to play anything seriously and when that's the case i prefer to play something more casual like playing a Mario Kart, Super Mario or even Diablo 3 with some of my cousins.

Now, answering directly to your question, i think that a game with social interaction that benefits people with problems in that area would need to have both the option to play alone and play it with someone else. Maybe by not making absolutely necessary to have another person to play with but by making the experience of interacting with the other players something that could help you and that would be fun to do.

Video games, that is simulations in a virtual world, is now beginning to be used as training in just about every human endeavor. It's inevitable that video games used to teach social skills will happen. Also @Andrejake, I'm not sure if the video games that you're referring to are the same, but the term "video games" that some people use is just a headline or umbrella term for "virtual simulation"

I actually kind of thought the same about Persona 3 lol

I think they don't or at least not yet till AI is much more advanced and camera's/microphones/body scanners will actually make it respond to you.

I can sit behind my computer in my dirty underwear covered in cheetos and with my face on thundermode and still get the pretty girl in the game to like me because I read the "good", "neutral" and "bad" answers and obviously knew which one to pick? How will this help me? I know all the "good" answers in real life, it's just that it comes out different and awkward. I'd need the game to scan me and and give me feedback on when exactly I gave of the wrong vibe while saying the right thing. Hell if you want it to be an actual training tool it should be so realistic that it rates my appearance and not even let me select 80% of the characters you'd end up putting in the game as possible "training partners" because they wouldn't in real life just on that, and not just talking about women.