Ubuntu games/Autism?

[Xoanan]

Hi all!

My son has Autism and has trouble w/social language. Since he tends to learn everything in accordance with a script, I wonder if it would be possible to construct a game that would help(i.e. a flowchart type game that would use lots of if then statements, for social situations?). Then I wondered if something like that already exists and is on the repos?

Any thoughts on that?

[DrMega]

Doesn't that go against the purpose? A computer program could only ever give you a scripted and tightly controlled exchange.

I have a friend who is autistic. From an early age society pushed him to one side, so he was socially very awkward when I met him when he was in his late twenties. His social skills are still lacking to a degree, largely because of his unfortunate start in life, but now he mingles more he is coming on in leaps and bounds.

Obviously there are varying degrees of autism, and what's right for one person may not be right for another, but perhaps your son needs a socially outgoing freind to hang out with, who can bail your son out and explain the situation if any awkward moments arise (like I and others did for my friend).

[erginemr]

Hello Xoanan,

Could you please explain / exemplify this?

[Xoanan]

Well, one of areas where he has trouble is social language and one of the things he does during his speech therapy is to read social stories. Now these social stories are scripted but they do teach him some basics.

No at the office where I work, we use a system called Remedy/TTS which helps our people troubleshoot a network connection for our customers. It follows a flow chart that takes them through a series of yes/no questions such as "Is the modem online? Yes or No"

It occured to me that a scripted story that gives him choices on scripts; that way, he has more choices when he uses social language.

He is only 5 years old btw.

[Xoanan]

Doesn't that go against the purpose? A computer program could only ever give you a scripted and tightly controlled exchange.

I have a friend who is autistic. From an early age society pushed him to one side, so he was socially very awkward when I met him when he was in his late twenties. His social skills are still lacking to a degree, largely because of his unfortunate start in life, but now he mingles more he is coming on in leaps and bounds.

Obviously there are varying degrees of autism, and what's right for one person may not be right for another, but perhaps your son needs a socially outgoing freind to hang out with, who can bail your son out and explain the situation if any awkward moments arise (like I and others did for my friend).

Well, right now, that's all he can do. What this would do would be to arm him with more scripts which will serve him until he comes to the point when he can write his own

[ZylGadis]

What is the trouble with autism? If I had an autistic child, I would tell him/her that it was completely fine, and his/her mental state actually allows him/her to excel at whatever he/she tries without social pressure. Autistic children typically have low confidence because "well-meaning" parents and friends trample it by trying to help. Autism is no more a disease than unconventional thinking (such as vegetarianism) is. Do not push your child to conform to society; it is society that should make room for geniuses, and if not, it is society's loss.

[Ebuntor]

No at the office where I work, we use a system called Remedy/TTS which helps our people troubleshoot a network connection for our customers. It follows a flow chart that takes them through a series of yes/no questions such as "Is the modem online? Yes or No"

It occured to me that a scripted story that gives him choices on scripts; that way, he has more choices when he uses social language.


I see, funny thing is I'm actually working on exactly such a program. It's just a shell script asking what kind of form the user wants to print.

Of course terminal commands aren't suited for a large program as you describe because it will need a lot of "if-else" loops which are pretty hard to make in shell script. A real programming language like Java would be better in this case.

I searched all the repositories for such a program but it doesn't seem to exist that's why I made a program myself.

[Xoanan]

Cool; let me know how that works out!

[Xoanan]

What is the trouble with autism? If I had an autistic child, I would tell him/her that it was completely fine, and his/her mental state actually allows him/her to excel at whatever he/she tries without social pressure. Autistic children typically have low confidence because "well-meaning" parents and friends trample it by trying to help. Autism is no more a disease than unconventional thinking (such as vegetarianism) is. Do not push your child to conform to society; it is society that should make room for geniuses, and if not, it is society's loss.

My Wife says "Bravo!"(or Brava, if you're a woman) and asks if she could copy and paste your words to her blog?

[Xoanan]

Oh yes, he has a socially outgoing friend-his big sister.

[Xavieran]

Older brothers and sisters are usually great at teaching their siblings interaction with people...My little sister almost speaks like an adult because she is around me (a teenager) and my other sister (also a teenager)!

Just because Autistic people can't do *all* the things *normal* people can doesn't mean anything...they may not be a *Jack of all trades* but they most definetely excel in their given areas...

I think I could write a script like that in Python...if else statements are *easy* to use in python...eg.

#!/usr/bin/python
userinput=raw_input("What would you say...")
if userinput == "blah":
print "Good!"
else:
print "Okay..."

But again, a script would only limit your child to what is in the script,the best preparation is talking to people...I'm sure his sister would be a great help in that...:)

[ZylGadis]

My Wife says "Bravo!"(or Brava, if you're a woman) and asks if she could copy and paste your words to her blog?

Sure, I am glad I could help, and I'd be happy to visit your wife's blog. By the way, I did not write what I did in my previous post in order to raise your confidence in your child or whatever - I wrote it because I believe in it.

What is "Bravo/Brava?" I have always taken it to express appreciation, but I did not know the word had a gender ending, so it must be a noun/adjective in some language instead of a simple interjection.

[Xoanan]

Sure, I will send you the link in a private message;

As far as bravo/brava, it's actually an Italian word meaning "capable". I realize that sounds rather anticlimactic considering we use it often after a good speech or a good performance, but evidently, it has more meaning in Italian(possible multiple meanings).

For the most part, I was raised by an opera buff(my mother) so I sort of picked up on the feminine version of bravo after hearing a recording of Maria Callas singing on stage. I have forgotten which opera that was, Cherubini's Medea perhaps

[Xoanan]

True enough. They tend to get on each other's nerves. She is 7 and he is 5. They
re both somewhat young

[sloggerkhan]

You want something you print out on paper, right?
With inkscape, you could make boxes and hook them up with connectors to make flow charts. Might even be able to find some .svg clip art to represent situations.
There's also dia, which makes diagrams.
Those are what come to my mind, anyhow.

[DrMega]

True enough. They tend to get on each other's nerves. She is 7 and he is 5. They
re both somewhat young

I have an older sister. When we were that age we were always bickering (and sometimes physically fighting), but if the bigger kids had a go at me my sister would give them a kicking. As far as she was concerned it was OK for her to pick on me but not for anyone else:)

[Xias]

I have an older sister. When we were that age we were always bickering (and sometimes physically fighting), but if the bigger kids had a go at me my sister would give them a kicking. As far as she was concerned it was OK for her to pick on me but not for anyone else:)

Hahaha, it was like that in my family too! :popcorn: