Gamers and Asperger’s
April 3, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
A new study to be presented at the British Psychological Society’s Annual Conference in Dublin has found that “people who showed more signs of games addiction exhibit the following personality traits: neuroticism, lack of extraversion and lack of agreeableness”—all of which are signs of Asperger’s Syndrome, today’s Next Generation reports.
I do have to say that, when I asked my college students what they had done over Spring Break, the main response (after “sleep”) was “play video games.”
To which I responded: I have played video games exactly one time in my life. I played Sonic the Hedgehog at a friend’s. In the words of her boyfriend:
“I’ve never seen anyone lose so quickly.”
But I can type 100 words a minute………
TH is already a dedicated gamer and quite good at it, playing on his DS and on one of our PCs. In fact, he’s playing Lego Star Wars as I type this. In spite of his “fine motor problems,” he’s as fast as he can be with this stuff.
As I’ve noted, Charlie’s had minimal (no) interest in video games—but then, today, while doing jigsaw puzzles on the computer he was completely focused, and absorbed.
Not a gamer.
But, gosh, BPS, if I learn to be less neuroticistic more agreeablenessful, does that mean I’ll be cureified of my Aspergerism?
I’ve started taking my kid to Gamer’s Workshop every Saturday just so he can be around some Aspies outside of school. My younger kid loves Pokemon- the creator of that is an acknowledged Aspie.
/grin I would consider doing jigsaws on the computer to be gaming. Yay Charlie!
Sorry the encounter with Sonic didn’t go so well. I still have one of the machines that originally played that game, just haven’t had it plugged in for a looong time.
My diagnosis is Asperger’s (if I haven’t said that time and again) and I have been attached to electronic entertainment since somewhere around age 12, if you consider the Pong game, my calculator, and then personal computers.
I hate to fit a stereotype, but I do work with computers. (they are usually very logical, don’t argue at loud volume, and can be convinced to do whatever your programming skills allow)
I managed to avoid ever playing a game of Pac-man too…… But I just found myself advising a student to take a course in HTML coding, Java, and C++ (he’s a communications major) and noted that I know a bit more about somethings than might be thought.
My husband–and TH’s father–is a programmer who spent 10 years in games programming. Perhaps it’s, um, yeah, genetic.
My little Aspie is addicted to video games and he’s not even 9 yet. His intense interest before video games was vaccuum cleaners. At least his interest in video games gives him something to talk about with other kids. The vaccuum habit didn’t really help him out socially!
Heh. I was always interested in video games, and would play them, but I couldn’t sustain attention too long, and I was terrified of confronting the major bosses in them. I grew up with Mario and Sonic and while intrigued by the “adventure-style” games, these were really hard to sustain focus on, and were not as entertaining as the kind where you just go through the levels.
My favorites were this one Sonic game on Sega, and a game called Luigi Lost or some such. We never actually owned the Luigi Lost game, but I requested it every time we went to the video rental store for a few years. I really liked that game.
It was my artsy sister who really got into video games, and my NT mom who got significantly into them as well, though she liked the adventure games most.
Hello friends -
LOL. I saw that and figured it might explain some things. I spend a lot of my college years (and after) playing video games; with kid autism around there isn’t as much time. Even still warcraft is a good escape; but there it helps to be agreeable and you are way better of playing with others than by yourself.
Tragically, we cannot get Luke to understand his “typing” is making things appear, his moving mouse is making things on the screen move, etc. We have considered getting him a wii, but I just don’t think he’d make the connection between his movements and what happens on the TV. I’d love for him to become a gamer, but don’t think I can get there, at least not yet. *Sigh*
Take care!
- pD
I confess to being a computer gaming addict–even before everybody had home computers, I discovered “adventure” and “mines of moria” on the college computers and snuck into the lab at night to play them. So it is no surprise that my son is an even more avid gamer than I am.
I have to say, though, that I know a lot of people who game alot that have no ASD symptoms at all. Just because ASD folks often like games doesn’t mean that gamers are likely to have ASDs!
Are you aware of jigzone.com? It has a bunch of free online puzzles Charlie might like, including some with surfing, swimming, and bikes. You can change the number and shape of the puzzle pieces and upload your own photos to create puzzles. The format of the site might be a bit too cluttered, though. I’m not sure if there is any way around that.
I can’t play super mario brothers but the FF series and Persona 3 can take hours out of my life.