Minecraft and Autism

I used to joke that liking Thomas the Train should be a diagnostic criteria for Autism. It seemed like very child with ASD had some level of fascination with that show - although only some actually became obsessed with it.

For the next generation I am thinking liking Minecraft should be apart of that diagnostic criteria. I do not mean that every individual who plays Minecraft is on the spectrum. I mean that there is something about Minecraft that seems to appeal to children on the spectrum. It is not always the typical aspect of the game either. As an ABA therapist I worked with a child who was fascinated with the glitches in Minecraft. I cringe every time that L also brings up the glitches, which is several times in a session.

At first I would watch over my children's shoulders as they would play. I would sit in wonderment about what actually draws them to this game. Why I did not see any harm, I also did not see the appeal.

 My children only have the pocket edition of Minecraft, and individuals who are on the same wifi can
go on other people's worlds. I believe that individuals can also access servers from the pocket edition, however I have not allowed my children to pursue this route.

Then L kept insisting that I play with her. One night, for our quality one on one time, I joined her. Here is my public confession. . . the game is actually not that bad. You enter a world, and have free reighn to do whatever you want.

We had a world where we built My Little Pony statues and 'rode' them. Another time my son spawned hundreds of chickens to get the world to crash. They ended up making it rain chickens by
putting them in blocks in the sky, releasing the bottom box, and watching them glide to the ground.

When they kept changing worlds every time they played, I stopped joining in as much. However, for the last month we have been working on a world where we were mining out levels from top to bottom. We had mined from all ends of the world tall enough to grow trees underground. J was just starting on the second floor - the new storage floor - when they updated the pocket edition.

So, incase you have not heard the pocket edition of Minecraft has been updated to 0.9.0. They have

added new features such as Enderman, Mushroom Cows, watermelons, and a lot of new land types. To my children this signified that we had to start a new world.

A Minecraft update is enough to send my children in a tailspin. S played for a few minutes and then had to get off because she could not handle the differences. J was so excited that he could not keep himself in control, and kept loosing the use of my iPad (He no longer has a Kindle Fire after he smashed it during a rage, and I refuse to get him a new one. I think this is obvious and he is lucky I let him use my iPad when he behaves. He thinks that it qualifies as torture.) S currently has lost the use of all apps until she begins to make better choices (we are almost to the point where she will start getting privileges back). She kept looking over everyone's shoulder when they were playing. Our thirty minutes of family Minecraft time was cut short, with the kids just getting to go to bed early. Don't get me wrong, the loved the update. It was the first thing out of J's mouth this morning. It is just amazing how that bit of chance can totally throw my kids off.