Minecraft is helping children with autism make new friends (2016)

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23030713-100-how-is-helping-children-with-autism-make-new-friends/

by midnightcity • 5 years ago

78 62 5 years ago

hnbad6• 5 years ago

Most "people with autism" prefer being called autistic by the way. The "with autism" label is mostly being pushed by parents of autistic children and autism organizations that aren't actually headed by any autistics (those also frequently use the "puzzle piece" symbol, which originates with Autism Speaks, an organization run by parents of autistic children that wants to find "a cure for autism", which some autistics consider a white washed form of eugenics).

tobyhinloopen• 5 years ago

It really depends who you’re asking. Some autistic people don’t like to be defined by their autism, hence “people with autism”.

I personally think it’s just a weird discussion with no value. There is no universal term people are happy with - You can’t do it right. Whatever set of words you’re using, you’ll end up offending someone. It makes it hard to talk about autism, because the endless discussion how to call these people distracts from the real discussions.

mistermann• 5 years ago

Alternatively, maybe it would help to have an "absurdly" in depth discussion, disassembling the phenomenon into tiny pieces that are seen differently by different people, and discuss why people see them differently, etc. And perhaps by doing a deep dive on this one subject, perhaps we'd learn something generic about ourselves that would be transferable to other subjects, similar to cross domain communication in science and engineering.

It seems to me that we use a very different thinking style in anything involving the humanities than we do with materialistic & deterministic domains, where our approaches have proven themselves so successful.

Knufen• 5 years ago

What does "white washed form of eugenics" mean? Legitimately curious!

hinoki• 5 years ago

Not GP, but I assume autistic people see the goal of a universal cure for autism (or even an accurate screening method for pregnancies) is the same as wiping out the existence of people like them.

dcow2• 5 years ago

Not the GP, but they seem to be frustrated at the frankly inhumane characterization pushed by a non-trivial group of upper middle class privileged (aka white washed) parents whereby autism is considered a disease or generic defect than needs correcting (loosely “eugenics”). The between the lines implication is that these parents choose this worldview either a) because parenting an autistic child can be tough, and these people, in their privileged nature, expect it easy, or b) they are so privileged they’re Karen/Ken level blissfully oblivious (arguably braindead) about how their outlook might be interpreted by autistic people, because, you know, it’s a spectrum and most of us fall on it somewhere. Or it’s both. Really makes you wonder which cognitive profile is truly um.. retarded.

s53002• 5 years ago

What does "white washed form of eugenics" mean? Legitimately curious!

Having the underlying intention of eugenics, but not outright saying "my true goals are eugenics"

In his example, Autism Speaks - it is fairly well known amongst autistic people/those on a neurodivergent spectrum/those who truly love/accept their autistic children/autistic people in general, that the organization, at it's head and with a majority of those who identify as members of it, are really people who are frustrated/unhappy/mad and/or absolutely terrible at coping with the fact that they had an autistic child & otherwise wish they'd have never been born. Their goal is not to accept autistic people as who they are or try to push for the general public (or perhaps "their agenda being") to accept them as who they are, but to outright eliminate the existence of what we know as Autism as a whole, which can politely be called "curing"

A more simple yet slightly less correct by "proper definitions" idea of what this entails is "being an asshole, but really, truly, wanting people to not think/be able to go "hey you're an asshole""

It's sort of like the Susan G. Komen charity, and as hard to explain as to why they're actually really fucking bad organizations to the average person - most people over the age of, say 15-20(?) likely think of Susan G. Komen foundation when they think of Breast Cancer or vice versa. The fact of the matter is, which can be easily seen on "charity rating websites" that document the entirety of various charities financial reports (legally attainable to the public per US law I believe, or something close to that) among a few other things, that Susan G. Komen doesn't actually do much for Breast Cancer at all from a funding/research/finding a cure perspective, but is entirely a financial grift for those at the helm of it. There are many, many better Breast Cancer awareness charities to donate to, but the average person will just think Susan G. Komen, and unknowingly put their money right into the pocket of grifters. It's been a very well known thing... for many years now, and legally they've gotten away with it by maintaining that they're simply "an awareness organization" - and, one could go on to argue many things about whether or not that could be legitimate and the money they're funneling to themselves is "earned/not malicious" for far too long.

tl:dr Susan G. Komen people are a bunch of dicks, but you won't know that if you don't look into it, so most people will probably think badly of you if you say "Susan G. Komen are a bunch of dicks" , just as somebody may think badly of you if you say "Autism Speaks are a bunch of dicks"

Hope this helps, and hope I don't upset too many people with this.

mwcampbell• 5 years ago

There also seems to be increasing pushback by disabled people against person-first language in general. For example, from a blind person: https://mosen.org/person-first-language-it-does-more-harm-th...

AzzieElbab• 5 years ago

The article is about kids. Kids, don’t care about these semantics

unyttigfjelltol• 5 years ago

My child is all about these semantics and antipathy toward Autism Speaks.

sidlls3• 5 years ago

You might be surprised what autistic kids care about. I have one, and that kid has an amazingly well developed sensibility about certain things, far more advanced than his peers’ and even a good fraction of adults.

breakfastduck• 5 years ago

Talk about trying to find a reason to be offended about something. Wow.

I have brown hair. I'd prefer to be called brown haired. But calling me a person with brown hair is perfectly accurate too. Give it a rest.

dcow2• 5 years ago

This is from 2016. It probably needs a year tag. Definitely Minecraft has been know to help build friendships, at least among my friends. We’ve known this for a good while, to put it one way…

kitd• 5 years ago

Slightly OT, but Minecraft was a godsend for my kids during lockdown. AFAICS, they made no distinction between playing with their mates in a virtual playground from playing in a physical one. The interactions seemed identical and definitely helped them socially in that time.

michaelbuckbee• 5 years ago

Minecraft was this for my kids as well, but the big surprise as far as "virtual playgrounds" to me was how incredibly social the games on Roblox are.

I'd (to my detriment) kind of written off Roblox as really shallow, but the overall ecosystem of games pushes things in fascinating directions.

kgwxd• 5 years ago

When my first kid was younger, I had written off Roblox as the worst predatory company on the planet (until Fortnite came along). I still think they're awful as a company, but my younger kid now also loves to play it, and his big brother taught him to ignore anything asking him for Robux, so I don't have to go through the endless fights over getting a digital hat for $20 USD, and I actually enjoy playing it with them.

codeulike• 5 years ago

The subject of the article, Autcraft, is still going strong I believe

https://www.autcraft.com/

tibbydudeza• 5 years ago

I can never be thankful enough to Minecraft and it's creator Markus Persson for helping my daughter discover the joys of online gaming and overcoming her social anxiety.

She now plays Destiny 2 mainly but the other day as walked into the lounge I found her back in Minecraft.

I remarked why she was playing that on her PS5 - she just smiled.

Minecraft is helping children with autism make new friends (2016)

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