Roll For Insight: Autism & Tabletop Gaming
March 29, 2019 by ludicryan
This week on Roll for Insight Ryan talks about Autism awareness and tabletop games
There’s an interesting article written for the Autism Support Network by Liz Becker. She talks about the experience she had raising her autistic son Matt and his approach to games. Trying to engage Matt with certain games was difficult and certain changes needed to be made: for example, playing ‘airplane’ and swinging him around required Matt to be facing away from Liz. What Matt found instantly accessible, however, were videogames. Not only was he able to “put the chaos of the real world away”, but Matt would practice talking with videogame characters. It was a way for him to practice speaking in a safe way without the fear of ‘failing’.
This kind of approach to videogames is echoed in an article by Cecilia D’Anastasio for Kotaku. The computer upholds the rules of videogames and provides a platform of predictability where autistic individuals can engage with a system that won’t penalise them for missing non-verbal signals or suddenly change the rules. However, that rigid structure and consequence-free social interaction isn’t guaranteed in tabletop games. Rules can be forgotten and mechanics might rely on deducing social cues.
Understanding Autism
World Autism Awareness Day is observed on the 2nd of April. In the UK and Australia, it’s for a week or more, and some American autism awareness networks observe it the entire month. The NI Department of Health identifies that one in thirty-four school children are identified as autistic so awareness is vitally important, especially with so much misinformation and misplaced fear. But it can be difficult to know where to start. I can not even begin to stress my own ignorance on the matter as a neurotypical individual, but weeks of research and interviews have helped. I am, of course, no expert and will still be learning so much more as time goes on.
Participants at the UN for the 2016 WAAD observance on "Autism and the 2030 Agenda: Inclusion and Neurodiversity"
Almost every autism awareness site has an explanation of what it is. The Autism NI website has a set of characteristics explaining how an individual might perceive and react to social interactions or how repetitive patterns of behaviour might manifest. But there is a problem with how a lot of these websites frame autism: they rigidly follow the medical model of disability.
In my article on Wargaming and Accessibility, I quoted Michael Heron from the website Meeples Like Us. Michael does accessibility teardowns of board games, but the frame in which he does this is from the social model of disability. And it’s very much worth quoting again:
“The disability is not the wheelchair. The disability is not the person in the wheelchair. The wheelchair is an accessibility aid. It’s not a problem, it’s a solution. The problem there is actually the stairs because the stairs are the thing stopping someone getting from one place to another. And the thing is, stairs don’t occur naturally in real life. They don’t just spontaneously generate in front of doors on a second storey. That door was there for a reason and that door was put there by somebody. So what the social model is saying is that we have to be mindful of those kinds of things.”
The social model of disability looks at the factors surrounding the person as the problem instead of identifying the person as the problem. It’s such a positive outlook: instead of blaming somebody for an injury or lifelong condition, we can look at how society can be designed for everybody.
The best resource I’ve found that embodies this notion of the social model of disability has been from academic Nick Walker and his idea of the neurodiversity paradigm. This way of thinking is similar to the social model of disability in that it criticises the idea of a “normal” or “healthy” way for our brains to operate. It says that dyslexia isn’t a medical condition, but the way in which the human race relies on certain forms of communication creates a barrier in the way of dyslexics (that may include long-winded articles like this one). Walker’s definition of autism follows on from this set of ideas and it’s worth quoting the entire first paragraph:
“Autism is a genetically-based human neurological variant. The complex set of interrelated characteristics that distinguish autistic neurology from non-autistic neurology is not yet fully understood, but current evidence indicates that the central distinction is that autistic brains are characterized by particularly high levels of synaptic connectivity and responsiveness. This tends to make the autistic individual’s subjective experience more intense and chaotic than that of non-autistic individuals: on both the sensorimotor and cognitive levels, the autistic mind tends to register more information, and the impact of each bit of information tends to be both stronger and less predictable.”
(Above video from The National Autistic Society aiming to simulate sensory overload)
A good analogy is that an autistic individual’s mind is running a different operating system than a non-autistic one and school.exe is not exactly built to accommodate the former. The experience of each autistic individual can be wildly different though. Some can experience fine motor control issues or speech problems. The degree to which the sensory overload can affect an individual in both physical and social ways is understandable when there can be so much more information to process: “...the social challenges faced by autistic individuals are just by-products of the intense and chaotic nature of autistic sensory and cognitive experience”.
Language is incredibly important because it can establish perspectives and shape societies, particularly on this divide between the medical model and the neurodiversity approach. Addressing someone as ‘person with autism’ turns autism into a condition and the person is identified as suffering from it in some way: it immediately disempowers them. Lydia Brown writes that the term ‘autistic person’ identifies “the value and worth of that individual as an Autistic person...Ultimately, we are accepting that the individual is different from non-Autistic people--and that’s not a tragedy.”
This tiny semantic detail is not without disagreements within autistic networks and communities of parents. And it’s certainly not helped when the word ‘autistic’ is used as a derogatory term aimed at those who get excited by tiny details as explored by D’Anastasio in her Kotaku article.
Tabletop Games
So for autistic individuals, is there a definitive way to get into board games or for neurotypical friends to introduce their autistic friends to board games? No, because each autistic person will have their own sensory processes and approach to the world. Should we all walk on eggshells for fear of causing a sensory overload with the complex social systems that might arise around the tabletop? Not at all.
Jo McQuillan is a local counsellor for children and adults with autism and says that instead of wrapping autistic individuals in bubble wrap, new hobbies and activities help build an emotional resistance. Jo uses LEGO®-based therapy as a way to improve social skills with her clients with some even using speech with figures as a way to hold a conversation with people in the room. It isn’t the only play-based approach that people are using.
Critical Core is a tabletop RPG from the non-profit organisation Game to Grow. It’s a purpose-built RPG for neurodiverse players in which each story is constructed to “help build strength in areas that are related to challenges associated with autism spectrum disorder”. The experience the game attempts to create is built from the same idea of Matt practicing speech with videogame characters and children using the LEGO®-based therapy to hold conversations with real people through the figures. One of the directors - Virginia Spielmann - talks about how the therapeutic models the game is built on stress and how each individual feels and experiences the world around them. She says:
“There is no correct way to be human and we are absolutely not about getting children to fit into a set of rules, making anybody normal - certainly not looking to cure or resolve issues that other people might want to be dealt with”
Tales like Liz’s about her son Matt make me fear for causing undue stress or harm by introducing the wrong type of board game. But Matt was using games as a way to understand more about himself. He initially saw failure in games as a reflection of who he was as a person and nothing can be further from the truth. But the more he played games and progressed on to board games and family games he was able to separate that fear and enjoy the games played with others.
I fear that I have failed some of my neurodivergent friends at times both in games and outside of it by not being more aware of how their mind works. A favourite game of our group was the cooperative game Hana Bi but a friend with terrible anxiety hated playing it. The pressure of potentially letting people down and not making the optimum move would somehow reflect upon their competence as a person, which couldn’t be further from the truth. Ultimately, that game isn’t going to define the other person, but I can learn from the experience what might suit the varied tastes of the group and each individual within it.
There are great discussions on reddit and boardgamegeek about how families and friends have adapted and looked for information to play with neurodivergent loved ones. Some gradually ramp up the difficulty of the games they play. Some hate ‘take-that’ mechanics (I’m looking at you Munchkin). A useful resource might be Meeples Like Us and their master list of accessibility teardowns. There is also an explanation of each category and their rating system here.
Just being aware of the barriers others might face in our society is such a small and useful step to take. But I can think of no better way to connect people than sitting around, moving some counters and cursing the dice gods for our collective bad luck.
We'd love to have your input on this in the comments below...
An absolutely fantastic article, well researched and a must for all to read. Autism is a hidden disability and for many children can create situations of real isolation as they alienate themselves from their peers due to an often very literal interpretation of the world. Life can be very challenging. Role-playing games and similar opportunities for autistic people to engage and develop strategies to deal with social interactions and problem thinking certainly helps when it comes to understanding real life events. In the UK a lot of children and families living with autism will be running 7K for the National Autistic Society as part of a campaign to promote awareness of autism. If you are able to support these events during next week please do. We live in a diverse society and everyone should feel welcome.
Even to me as a ‘sane’/’normal’ person there is value in the ‘accessibility teardowns’ that Meeples like us do.
Reviews so often focus on flashy details that the minor things (like the amount of text on cards) are either forgotten or ignored. It doesn’t help that going to that level of detail makes reviews more time consuming to produce, altough I think there is more to be gained for everyone by having that attention to detail.
Maybe we should treat ‘normality’ or ‘sane’ as an utopian vision of what society has decided humans should be like. The more we diverge from the ‘norm’ the greater the challenges there will be in trying to function within our society.
Kind of how fashion models represent idealised visions of beauty that are effectively impossible for the average person to achieve.
A great article. For many years it was believed by my mother and family that i was schizophrenic, especially in my mid to late teens. It wasn’t until i was 29 that i finally found out that i had what is called High Functioning Process Autism.
I am able to function and interact within society seemingly without problems but on the inside i was struggling with literal interpretations of non-literal expressions and visa versa.
The only real impact discovering the nature of my “issue” has had is to give me a better sense of who i am and why i think or do certain things in certain ways and to then allow me to move forward knowing that if i want to get where i want to go in life that i just have to take slightly different roads then most people 🙂
I never wanted special treatment, i only just ever wanted to be understood and to understand myself. I have come along way from the struggles my youth and i know moving forward with innovations like Critical Core and communities within those like that of OTT, the future is looking very good.
Thank you Ryan for this article and to all those at OTT for there work which helps so many people by just being you and doing what you do 🙂
Hi,
I’m not quite sure how I should reply to this, I’ve read over it several times today and I have gone from incredibly angry and frustrated to upset and now just confused with the core idea behind this and what was intended as the outcome.
Let me state from near the start that I am a person with high functioning autism and dyslexia, and both have been an ongoing pressure on my life and caused a level of anxiety and pain that is hard to put fully into words. This is both from a work-based stand point and an inter-personal stand point. As an example, at my nan’s funeral I was approached by my sister as everyone had been crying and distressed, for her to state “look at you, you steely eyed panther.” as I had not shed a single tear nor did I seem upset. This caused some confusion for me to which I replied “why would I be, she’s dead now”, I couldn’t, and still find it hard to, comprehend why anyone would be upset for someone who is dead. I was sad for her when she was in pain dying, not after the fact. My sister’s reaction and those of others since have taught me this is not a normal reaction, so other than using it as a self-deprecating joke I now avoid stating what I feel in those kinds of situations.
So, although I have lived and accepted a lot of my issues caused by autism and my dyslexia this article is one of the few times, I’ve felt like a lesser person because of them. I know this is written from a place of goodwill but this kind of thinking “I fear that I have failed some of my neurodivergent friends at times both in games and outside of it by not being more aware of how their mind works. A favourite game of our group was the cooperative game Hana Bi but a friend with terrible anxiety hated playing it. The pressure of potentially letting people down and not making the optimum move would somehow reflect upon their competence as a person, which couldn’t be further from the truth.” is in my opinion quite hurtful. I don’t want you to make undue allowances beforehand, I don’t want you to be in a panic because you may make a faux pas over what you may do to make me feel uncomfortable, because if you think I felt uncomfortable before I now feel worse. In the example I quoted I would hope that if you friend felt that way, and had communicated it with your group, you wouldn’t make them play Hana Bi and in my personal experience my friends do not normally force me to play games I hate either, surely that is enough.
The language used in this article is also in its own way derogatory, you state you are “neurotypical”, this being the opposite of neuro-atypical or neurologically abnormal. The people you are talking about are “neurodiverse” but either we are all neurodiverse or you are using it as another label for different. Neurodiverse does not cover all the complications of the myriad issues you are conflating in the article as you use it to cover dyslexia, anxiety and autism although each of these is its own issue needing its own independent interaction with the subject and, potentially, its own support. One of my friends, who is the most dyslexic person I have ever met, would be horrified and offended if I started limiting what options I presented to him to play games based on my fear that I may offend him with too much text. The man has managed to get a master’s degree in history, I think it may be a bit condescending to assume he may not be able to cope with an article only 1678 words long.
As a conclusion I think that maybe instead of being concerned about how your actions may affect people who are dyslexic, anxious or autistic it may be worthwhile discussing with them how they feel about playing the games you’re interested in playing, rather than assuming, and potentially alienating them, from a game that they may enjoy. My favourite is Avalon, a game purely about social interaction as I can use my extensive use of logic to figure out who is the baddie, even if it confuses me why others can’t see it my way, a game I would have never experienced if people focused on my almost crippling dislike of being put in social situations instead of letting me try it.
Hi Azrea,
Firstly I want to say thank you very much for your comment. I take criticism of my work very seriously and I am grateful to you for pointing out the deficiencies and tonal problems within the article.
Secondly, I must apologise that the article has caused a great deal of frustration and anger. Though it is, of course, not the intention, the problem lies with how I have written it. Though I was particular regarding the language when writing it, that it has come across as derogatory is terrible and I’m deeply sorry for this.
Reflecting on your comment and problems with the article, I can see that there was an issue in terms of scope. I approached the article as a kind of necessary lead-in to raise awareness for national Autism week. Then comes the necessity of defining what it is you’re raising awareness of. After this, I had to connect it with tabletop games and address issues where they might arise. Narrowing this down into a short article is a difficult task and I think this is where the problem of scope comes in. There’s not enough space to do everything justice and so my words have not been clear and direct enough. A few extra sentences contextualising certain things should have been put in. At the time of writing it though, I just worried that it was already too long and unwieldy.
I tried to compensate for this by embedding links to my sources throughout the article. But I must acknowledge that nobody is going to click through on a link to another site as it breaks the flow of whatever you’re reading at the time. Putting links at the bottom doesn’t mean that they will be clicked on either to elucidate the problems that people might have. So the solution must reside within the writing itself. And so I think a few of my mistakes have been in not being clear enough with my words and trying to summarise incredibly complex work and perspectives from other individuals into such a narrow framework.
It’s worth embedding links to the most important of those resources in the blog Neuorcosmopolitanism from Nick Walker. Encountering this blog completely changed how I approached writing the article and I regarded it as vitally important. But as you point out, I haven’t defined terms like ‘neurotypical’, ‘neurodivergent’ or ‘neurodiverse’ and that can lead to confusion and offence if not properly addressed. In terms of scope I tried to do too much with so little space. This has been a problem with my writing academically. My supervisors asked me to contextualise and explain so much on numerous occasions and it is something I will try to improve even more so.
http://neurocosmopolitanism.com/what-is-autism/
http://neurocosmopolitanism.com/neurodiversity-some-basic-terms-definitions/
http://neurocosmopolitanism.com/throw-away-the-masters-tools-liberating-ourselves-from-the-pathology-paradigm/
In addition, you’ve pointed out a couple of examples where I have not gone into enough depth on. In the Hana Bi example, we stopped playing it when our friend told us that it made her uncomfortable. This was something that was communicated and talk about with her and the group. There has been an assumption on my part that this bit of information was communicated in the article when it wasn’t at all. When someone says they don’t want to play a particular game because it makes them feel a certain way, I am conscious of that and address it.
In the article, I tried to find a balance between saying that you shouldn’t walk on eggshells around neurodivergent people and you shouldn’t limit their experiences. There are so many different perspectives that I have to account for here: from parents of autistic children to autistic individuals themselves that in an article on autism awareness I have to find a balance between how parents might introduce their kids to gaming and adult autistic individuals who are very much their own autonomous individuals. In light of this, I haven’t addressed the latter as much as I should have. It is condescending because I am someone from the outside seemingly suggesting that the activities of others should be controlled and regulated. As you might expect that is not what I am advocating at all, but I see how it has come across that way through my writing and I very sincerely apologise for it!
Coming back to the notion of scope again very quickly, I want to address your paragraph on dyslexia. Again there is a problem with the scope of the article that I have not adequately defined the terms. I wanted to show that neurodivergence doesn’t just cover autism but also dyslexia and other forms of neurocognitive functioning. The article is about autism and not dyslexia and the following section on tabletop gaming does not address dyslexia.
One of the most important parts about the article that I wanted to foreground heavily is the social model of disability or, in neurocognitive terms, the neurodiversity paradigm. There are other approaches that people can take to make sure that our society is more accessible for dyslexic individuals. I have not the space or requisite research completed to suggest what they might be here. but please know that the kind of approach of limiting people is not something I advocate. It’s about providing more options for people to address their own neurocognitive functions. My PhD supervisor is halfway through his own PhD and he has had to struggle with dyslexia in academia. Maybe the solution is in specialised fonts like Dyslexie which are specifically designed to be easier to read for dyslexic individuals. I’m not so sure on that though as a dyslexic colleague of mine thought that from a graphic design perspective the font was ugly and that subjecting everyone to that was offensive. I just do not know what the answer is but those kinds of solutions were not something I was looking to address in the article.
This was a long response and I do apologise for that. But what is most important is that I acknowledge the problems with the article that you have brought up and sincerely apologise for it. Distress and anger is not something I ever intended but I hope to recognise and address those problems in my writing going forward so that it doesn’t happen again.
Kind regards,
Ryan
Hi Ryan,
Thank you for taking the time to reply and your well thought out response. I did have a look through the links you provided in the article and once again through the links you provided in your response.
I understand where your coming from and I appreciate what you are trying to achieve. I think the main issue is that in some cases using items like the blog that you use potentially can cause more issues than it may appear. The blog is written from a point of view of inclusivity, but it is just that the words it is trying to use to supplant the old ones cause the same effect, neurotypical is by default the opposite of neuro-atypical (in this case neurodiverse) and therefore they are a synonym of normal and abnormal brain patterns. The feeling of cosseting I received from the article is the fact it feels like these words are changed to abuse my intellect they are a gauche ruse to divert my attention from the fact that the preconditions to the label are still normal and abnormal brain activity. I would go into this further but do not want this to turn into me lambasting you or an unproductive discussion on the OTT website. I am sorry if this already feels like it is the case.
To finish I do appreciate what you and OTT are trying to do here and raising awareness for autism or any neurological issues.
Regards,
Azrea
No need to apologise Azrea! I feel like this has been a productive conversation. I have certainly realised that when writing about accessibility my ‘packed’ writing style can leave important things unsaid – it assumes the reader follows every link and that my language is abundantly clear when that may not be the case.
It also made me think about how my perspective on the matter is inherently limited. Whilst I conducted an interview with an autistic individual who is, in turn, a counsellor, I cannot possibly imagine what it is like to be autistic. When writing the piece I had been lamenting that I hadn’t put a call out to interview autistic individuals who were board game enthusiasts because when writing an article like this I think it’s important to gather as many subjective experiences as possible to ground the writing in a very human reality. (I think that makes it even more important to read material from autistic writers).
As for the terminology, I can’t help but agree. I’m fine with the term neurodiversity because it refers to many different types of neurocognitive functioning, but ‘neurotypical’ and ‘neurodivergent’ did make me pause and think. I have been so eager to get behind a social model of disability and to get behind a movement of inclusivity that I have adopted these terms for the article. I know what Nick is trying to do by pointing out that the very systems that govern our lives favour ‘neurotypical’ minds and that by pointing out these things through a common vernacular we can show and explain this to people. But yes, it does have problems. I will continue to look for the best language that can do both these things!
Don’t worry about the idea of this being an unproductive discussion. That there is a healthy discourse where mistakes can be acknowledged and discussion on terms and ideas carried on after the piece is finished is an important part of this process we call living!
My sincere apologies remain, but so does my gratitude for you speaking up, making me realise a better way. I only wish you didn’t have to expend the energy in the first place!