Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi,
Our son is 11 and was diagnosed as autistic 4 years ago. He was attending a main-stream school until about a year ago, at which point the noise and general disorder of his class became too much and he was no longer able to attend. Since then he's been attending an online school, but has never really connected with the other children and has become socially isolated. He has a love of computer games which he plays with his one friend (neurotypical), but it obviously puts a lot of pressure on this friend and my son demands constant attention from him.
He's never shown any enthusiasm for local clubs, and it's always been difficult to help him socialise. We were hoping that there would be an appropriate online computer gaming club he could join in Scotland (where we live) or somewhere else in the UK. Spectrum Gaming looks a perfect fit, but only takes locals.
Does anyone have any advice?
Thanks
That would be easier if we knew what kinds of games he liked. A lot of games can develop very dedicated online communities with forums like this one. And if we're talking online multiplayer games like Minecraft, Fortnite or World of Warcraft, then the possibilities grow even further. It's a little bit of a rough bet for an 11 year old, because you'll be getting people of all ages involved and not everyone on the internet is kind.
But, yeah, if you give us an idea of what he likes, maybe we can find something that will work for him.
He likes the popular ones (Minecraft, Roblox) and some Nintendo ones (Tears of the Kingdom,Breath of the Wild) but has recently got into Rocket League, which has been a real source of unhappiness. It's a combination of not being very good, as he struggles with the competitive nature of it, and the limited chat function which, although it doesn't allow free text so it can't be used to be abusive, can be used to be sarcastic (e.g. if someone scores a goal against him they fools it up with "nice save") which distresses him. As you say, not everyone on the internet is kind :-(Many thanks for your help.
Well as it just so happens, it looks like a few years ago someone on this very site posted about a UK based, application only Minecraft server specifically for autistic people. Famallama, it seems to be called. I'll share the link to the post to credit the person that originally brought it to us.
https://community.autism.org.uk/f/parents-and-carers/22789/recommendation-for-a-safe-online-space-for-those-who-love-minecraft
From what I can tell, the server is still active as its twitter page is still getting updates.