I'm not really surprised by this, as I have some friends who I've known in real life who do suffer from Autism and many of which do play video games of some sort and do show many irrational addictive behaviors. I would also like to add in that I only play computer games and a few on my iPad.
I am in the Autism spectrum though (I have Aspergers).
Here are a few articles I highly suggest reading regarding this:
http://www.disabilityscoop.com/2013/04/22/autism-video-game/17766/
—
-The Jewish Gamer
I went and read the original study and some aspects of it are not in line with what those articles are reporting. More importantly, the study only found that kids in their study had a higher game usage than average kids. They did not find a correlation between the amount of game usage and the negative/anti-social behavior. The correlation there was rather with the type of game (which I think is an important and often overlooked variable.
It should be noted (as the authors did in their discussion) that some of their findings are not in agreement with other research and that this is a pretty new area of research and absolute conclusions should not be drawn.
Some interesting passages from the study:
"In a sample of 169 boys with ASD, the results indicated that amount of game play alone was not associated with problem behaviors. Rather, the most reliable predictors of problem behaviors were shown to be video game genre and problematic, or addictive, qualities of play."
Interesting that they make the distinction between amount of time played and addictive qualities of play (I didn't have time to investigate the source material on that).
"Specifically, significant positive relationships were found between problematic video game use and both inattention and oppositional symptoms. Furthermore, boys with ASD who primarily played Role-Playing games had significantly greater oppositional behaviors than those who did not play such games. "
Again, really interesting and I think useful for further research/discussion. Games are not all equal and I think this comes into a lot of discussions here. Some generas/styles are clearly more problematic than others.
"Interestingly, however, hyperactivity was not significantly associated with either problematic video game use or video game genre. "
Interestingly, violent video game use did not emerge as a significant predictor of either oppositional behavior or inattention in either bivariate or multivariate models. Consistent with Rehbein et al. (2010), we found that First-Person Shooter games were significantly associated with problematic game play patterns; however, they did not relate specifically to behavior problems.
Overall, this study was pretty well done (though self-reporting always introduces issues), but as is all too common, the reporting on the study is very different from what the study says.
Joe
Hello,
I came across this page of your site http://www.olganon.org/comment/244298 and noticed that you are linking to http://www.autismspeaks.org/science/science-news/kids-and-teens-autism-vulnerable-video-game-addiction and other resources for the mentally disabled. I wanted to thank you for these efforts – this is a mission I have been deeply involved in as well. If I may have just a moment of your time, I wanted to talk to you about an underserved segment among the mentally disabled – and also suggest an addition to your page.
Disabled individuals suffer unique challenges with mental health, addiction and access to treatment.
While there are many unique mental health resources available, none of them are comprehensive and specifically tailored to the mentally disabled. After research across the resources available on the web, the AAC team noticed the absence of a centralized resource designed to help understand the basics of mental health, alcohol use and addiction within this demographic and offer guidance on navigating support systems. They decided to fill this gap of knowledge.
The result is this page:
http://sunrisehouse.com/addiction-demographics/mentally-disabled/
This page summarizes available governmental, organizational and other resources and makes them easily accessible to those searching for assistance. It includes dozens of the latest studies and external resources for the mentally disabled seeking assistance. We hope that the quality of this page and the importance of the subject matter merits inclusion on your page alongside the other resources you have provided – or elsewhere on your website.
Thank you so much for your time. If you have the chance, please let me know what we need to do to have this page included as a resource. If you are not responsible for modifications to this page, apologies for the miscommunication, and I would greatly appreciate it if you could point me in the right direction.
Thank you,
Ashley Knowles
outreach@advocatesforhealth.org
Liz Woolley