Playing D&D Helps Autistic Players In Social Interactions, Study Finds (arstechnica.com) 40
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Since its introduction in the 1970s, Dungeons & Dragons has become one of the most influential tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs) in popular culture, featuring heavily in Stranger Things, for example, and spawning a blockbuster movie released last year. Over the last decade or so, researchers have turned their focus more heavily to the ways in which D&D and other TRPGs can help people with autism form healthy social connections, in part because the gaming environment offers clear rules around social interactions. According to the authors of a new paper published in the journal Autism, D&D helped boost players' confidence with autism, giving them a strong sense of kinship or belonging, among other benefits.
"There are many myths and misconceptions about autism, with some of the biggest suggesting that those with it aren't socially motivated, or don't have any imagination," said co-author Gray Atherton, a psychologist at the University of Plymouth. "Dungeons & Dragons goes against all that, centering around working together in a team, all of which takes place in a completely imaginary environment. Those taking part in our study saw the game as a breath of fresh air, a chance to take on a different persona and share experiences outside of an often challenging reality. That sense of escapism made them feel incredibly comfortable, and many of them said they were now trying to apply aspects of it in their daily lives." [...] For this latest study. Atherton et al. wanted to specifically investigate how autistic players experience D&D when playing in groups with other autistic players. It's essentially a case study with a small sample size -- just eight participants -- and qualitative in nature, since the post-play analysis focused on semistructured interviews with each player after the conclusion of the online campaign, the better to highlight their individual voices.
The players were recruited through social media advertisements within the D&D, Reddit and Discord online communities; all had received an autism diagnosis by a medical professional. They were split into two groups of four players, with one of the researchers (who's been playing D&D for years) acting as the dungeon master. The online sessions featured in the study was the Waterdeep: Dragonheist campaign. The campaign ran for six weeks, with sessions lasting between two and four hours (including breaks). Participants spoke repeatedly about the positive benefits they received from playing D&D, providing a friendly environment that helped them relax about social pressures. "When you're interacting with people over D&D, you're more likely to understand what's going on," one participant said in their study interview. "That's because the method you'll use to interact is written out. You can see what you're meant to do. There's an actual sort of reference sheet for some social interactions." That, in turn, helped foster a sense of belonging and kinship with their fellow players.
Participants also reported feeling emotionally invested and close to their characters, with some preferring to separate themselves from their character in order to explore other aspects of their personality or even an entirely new persona, thus broadening their perspectives. "I can make a character quite different from how I interact with people in real-life interactions," one participant said. "It helps you put yourself in the other person's perspective because you are technically entering a persona that is your character. You can then try to see how it feels to be in that interaction or in that scenario through another lens." And some participants said they were able to "rewrite" their own personal stories outside the game by adopting some of their characters' traits -- a psychological phenomenon known as "bleed."
"There are many myths and misconceptions about autism, with some of the biggest suggesting that those with it aren't socially motivated, or don't have any imagination," said co-author Gray Atherton, a psychologist at the University of Plymouth. "Dungeons & Dragons goes against all that, centering around working together in a team, all of which takes place in a completely imaginary environment. Those taking part in our study saw the game as a breath of fresh air, a chance to take on a different persona and share experiences outside of an often challenging reality. That sense of escapism made them feel incredibly comfortable, and many of them said they were now trying to apply aspects of it in their daily lives." [...] For this latest study. Atherton et al. wanted to specifically investigate how autistic players experience D&D when playing in groups with other autistic players. It's essentially a case study with a small sample size -- just eight participants -- and qualitative in nature, since the post-play analysis focused on semistructured interviews with each player after the conclusion of the online campaign, the better to highlight their individual voices.
The players were recruited through social media advertisements within the D&D, Reddit and Discord online communities; all had received an autism diagnosis by a medical professional. They were split into two groups of four players, with one of the researchers (who's been playing D&D for years) acting as the dungeon master. The online sessions featured in the study was the Waterdeep: Dragonheist campaign. The campaign ran for six weeks, with sessions lasting between two and four hours (including breaks). Participants spoke repeatedly about the positive benefits they received from playing D&D, providing a friendly environment that helped them relax about social pressures. "When you're interacting with people over D&D, you're more likely to understand what's going on," one participant said in their study interview. "That's because the method you'll use to interact is written out. You can see what you're meant to do. There's an actual sort of reference sheet for some social interactions." That, in turn, helped foster a sense of belonging and kinship with their fellow players.
Participants also reported feeling emotionally invested and close to their characters, with some preferring to separate themselves from their character in order to explore other aspects of their personality or even an entirely new persona, thus broadening their perspectives. "I can make a character quite different from how I interact with people in real-life interactions," one participant said. "It helps you put yourself in the other person's perspective because you are technically entering a persona that is your character. You can then try to see how it feels to be in that interaction or in that scenario through another lens." And some participants said they were able to "rewrite" their own personal stories outside the game by adopting some of their characters' traits -- a psychological phenomenon known as "bleed."
Definitely (Score:4, Funny)
Definitely Dungeons & Dragons, definitely. 20 sided die, 20. Failed the saving throw, failed the saving throw, FAILED THE SAVING THROW!
Generalizing-Common Purpose ==easier solialization (Score:2)
It may be that autistic people do better in social situations where there a goal or common purpose; and do less well in social situations where there is not a common goal or purpose.
Consider these two social events:
- Playing tabletop D&D with a group of friends for 4 hours
- Discussing celebrity gossip, billionairess attending football games and the fashion they wear, etc. for 4 hours with a small group of friends
Re: (Score:2)
My personal experience agrees with this a lot. I don't have a diagnosis but I'm certainly introverted.
Basically, I'm interested in doing things where my skills can be used, challenged and developed. Doing these things with other people can be great fun, and I think I've had some of my best time in amateur theatre, which is basically LARP with an audience. But I have zero interest in hanging out with people with no deeper purpose. I think it's largely because social activities always drain my batteries, s
d20 solves a lot of social interactions (Score:2)
"Greetings! It's a ... [rolls dice] ... pleasure to meet you." [youtube.com]
never fails (Score:2)
I rolled 20 and vanquished your eye rolls, you have to give me your phone number.
In my experience (Score:2)
It's an activity where selfish wish-fulfilment pulls you in, but you end up staying for the social interaction.
I'm not sure there's anything special about D&D, in fact in May be one of the less effective social activities because the point system encouraged playing to win personally over the group, and playing to win in general over the fun and cooperative storytelling aspects. I haven't played them, but I suspect there are better RPGs out there if you're trying to socialize people who have difficultie
Re: In my experience (Score:1)
The playing group can define success how they want. The point is creating a form where everyone can contribute. I'm thinking success is long term involvement and developing skills in communication. Just like how people use to get together just to tell stories or play musical instruments, the point is developing skills to use in life.
Re:In my experience (Score:5, Informative)
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You ever play Paranoia? It had a flair for the absurd.
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imagine being angry at people who enjoy dice based character driver board games.
Re: Ask Israel (Score:2)
Re: Ask Israel (Score:2)
Re: Ask Israel (Score:2)
Arab players or Jewish players? I guess this matters.
Dance with the devil (Score:3)
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Re: Dance with the devil (Score:2)
If only we measured what we produced... (Score:1)
You know to connect costs with results, and provide meaningful feedback.
I'd claim college is more about filtering out people, and forcing them to a minimum knowledge level. Maybe instill a few new habits (for good or ill), and expose people to each other creating a new clique or social circle. Add in some short term checks of work like results for good measure. Then certify the next batch.
There isn't a magical system or process that gets instilled. And if it was all about 'needing more pressure' to prov
Crap, wrong article! (Score:1)
Guess I can't delete this... that I can find.
Autistic scientists who want to play D&D... (Score:4, Funny)
...during work hours with full finding.
Sounds pretty brilliant to me
Who's measuring? (Score:4, Funny)
"Wow, you're so confident and funny. Were you always like this?"
"Nah, I've just played a lot of D&D."
Experience with my kid (Score:5, Interesting)
I had intuitively already the idea that a child friendly RPG would be beneficial, hence I had bought "No thank you Evil" which a very light RPG aimed at kids. He likes it a lot and I have the impression that it indeed helps his social skills. Every little bit helps.
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So many degrees of autism. Is this the one that used to be referred to as Asperger’s? Highly functional. Lots of famous people are in thst group including Tom Petty.
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Seems like it helps anyone. (Score:2)
I took an autistic student to games (Score:2)
I was in a gaming group, and we had space, so I took an autistic high school student of mine to some games. He played just fine. He enjoyed himself. His parents were appreciative. He had better social skills than the DM's wife, by a mile. Now he works at Meta.
Playing Dark Eye too. (Score:2)
That aside, tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) have a whole lot of benefits, practicing social interaction and speaking etiquette being just one of them. For the Gamemaster it's a good place to practice soft leadership and politics, for instance. For the players it's a good practice in participation, active engagement and forming any kind of relationship.
This goes not just for autistic people but nerdy types and regular people too.
For me TTRPG were a god-send as a teen in the 80ies. The Dark Eye was my fi
Re: (Score:2)
Lots of animals (probably most of the ones with enough neurons to knock together to be worth calling a brain) use play for skill building and maintenance.
A grade-school class in RPGs isn't the worst idea for teaching kids improved social skills and team building without it being tedious lecturing, but you're probably going to have to have the teachers run the games to ensure they go in a direction that is friendly to all players. And that brings another issue - class sizes make it damn near impossible, so
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Now consider how in our modern culture of safetyism kids aren't allowed unstructured, self-motivated and managed, non-monitored play.
The real story here (Score:1)
Imagine the opposite - insecure, socially awkward on the inside but doing everything to hide it on the outside, wann
Been running D&D social skills groups for 11 y (Score:3)
What I really like doing is teaching the social skills stuff through the game, but teaching them how to self/peer advocate at the table. So, I get them to role play and practice conversation skills as their dwarven arcanist or kobold influencer or whatever, but at the table they're learning how to support an autistic who is getting overwhelmed, or needs some space, etc. Just fantastic stuff. I'm getting a paper published next month on it.
No wonder! (Score:2)
I didn't play D&D physically. I did play the computer game versions.