🧠Why do so many kids- including neurodivergent kids- thrive in video game environments but less so in the real world? Well, for one thing, video games provide accommodations that the real world doesn’t do as consistently.
👨👨👦👦Universal interventions or accommodations are those that largely benefit *everyone* in an environment, not just a particular student or group. A game might remind you of your objective or have a way to check it. In education we call this “frequent check-ins” to help a student stay on task and remember their goal.
☑️When working on something big, breaking tasks down into smaller parts (“chunking”) or writing the steps in a checklist can be helpful for those who struggle to remember the steps. In video games, you can often check a pause menu or log to see how you’re progressing in a task and what needs to come next. In other words, the game is offloading some of that executive functioning so that you can be successful (which is also helpful in education or work environments).
🤔And if you’re doing something that might be a bad idea- fighting a boss that’s too strong or going somewhere unprepared- a video game won’t necessarily *prevent* you from doing it, but it will *remind you of the consequences of it* so you can prepare accordingly.
🤯What’s key here is that a player’s ability to thrive in gaming is not just because “they play a lot.” It is the *structures* in place in the design of a game that accomodate a vast range of player abilities, ages, needs, and abilities.
🧒🏼So if you notice your child is really successful in a game environment but less so in real life- pay attention to what is aiding in their success. When we notice these things, we can try to embed them into real life. A child who is constantly checking their inventory to see what they have might benefit from a visual “menu” of the clothing in their drawer, for example. A child who is stopping to check their objective or progress might benefit from a checklist that shows what they need to be prepared for school each day.
🤯Noticing these things not helps us learn more about our kids, but it also helps us teach them about themselves and their needs.
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