Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) is helping Autistic teens and adults develop social skills and more
When coming to speech therapy, Autistic teens and adults are often motivated improve their communication skills in order to work towards the same goals; make more friendships, strengthen current social connections, and generally feel more confident in social scenarios. Social skills, including relating to others, conversational skills, and self awareness and are all positive precursors for success in the workplace and in your personal life. There is a growing body of evidence that these skills not only improve quality of life but also have a positive influence on academic success.
Now, in addition to developing social skills in speech therapy, increasing numbers of education specialists are recommending Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) as way develop and strengthen some key skills that help foster more meaningful relationships.
What is Dungeons and Dragons?
Dungeons and Dragons (DnD) is a role playing game where you and your fellow team mates join together to adopt the identities of a range of different characters, and work together to overcome a range of fantastical scenarios. The official DnD site introduces the game as a “quest for treasure, battles with deadly foes, daring rescues, courtly intrigue, and much more.”.
When DnD is created well it should be a safe, judgement-free zone. It is a non-competitive game that encourages you work together with fellow team members in order to overcome a variety of creative and unique sets of challenges that are presented to you by the Game Master or Dungeon Master (DM). At the heart of the game is a strong sense of cooperation, enthusiasm and creativity.
For more information on how DND is played you can watch:
Additionally the DnD facebook group includes videos of people playing the game.
7 reasons why DnD helps people with autism develop social connections
People with autism experience a range of different social skill challenges that can include: difficulties engaging in conversations, knowing what is appropriate to say and in which context, interpreting other’s view points, or understanding indirect (inferred) meanings.
DnD supports people with autism because:
1. it gives you a social context to meet new people, and a context to maintain a regular social group and connection.
2. it gives you the opportunity to practice conversational skills in a supportive setting. As the game is set in a standard way, conversational themes and frameworks are predictable. This predictability supports people on the autism spectrum to anticipate what is expected of them in conversation and reduces comprehension load interpreting comments made by others.
3. you practice cooperation and team work skills as you learn to listen to the ideas of others and incorporate these in order to stay alive and fight off enemies together.
4. you practice taking the perspectives of others by playing your character. In DnD you must adopt the personality and perspective of a character and play the game acting from this different perspective. In addition you must also consider the perspectives of other player’s characters in order to be successful.
This practice using perspective increases skills such as empathy, interpreting the actions of others, and can even support the understanding of your own identity.
5. it helps you to tolerate frustrations and to accept things that are outside of your control because sometimes a roll of the dice can impact the entire course of the game. Frustrations can occur in a variety of social scenarios and handling these with more grace and flexibility allows for smoother more relaxed social connections.
6. you practice making decisions. Decisions such as what to do, say or in general behave can be challenging for some people on the spectrum, as there is a fear ‘doing the wrong thing’ or not choosing the best action. A review on the games’ benefits explains that DND also provides a safe space to practice making decisions away from the real world (and real world consequences) and gives players opportunity to practice making faster decisions and consequently observe and learn about the impact (or lack there of) from different choices.
7. DnD can support you to develop confidence in social settings. As you progress in skill and familiarity in the game your confidence to communicate with team mates and within this setting is also bound to improve. Developing skills in conversations and communication within your DnD parties can help provide positive feedback and give confidence and positive beliefs about your abilities to adapt in other social scenarios.
How can you get started?
A DnD starter guide explains that a typical DnD party usually consists of 4 – 6 players however it is possible to play at an absolute minimum 3 people are required to play.
There are 4 practical things you need in order to get yourself set up to start this includes:
1. Set of rules
2. Dice
3. Pencils and paper
4. Your team of ideally 4 – 6 players
There are starter sets that can be purchased for a low cost e.g. amazon.
Alternatively a free PDF of the rules can be found online through DND wizards.
Most D&D players prefer to play in person. Although finding a face to face group is more complicated, a good way to begin your searching for your teams is by joining a DnD meetup group.
For the major Australian cities the meetup links are as follows:
- Sydney
- Brisbane
- Adelaide
- Hobart
- Perth
- Darwin
And if this proves to be too complicated, or you’re living remotely, searching for a team to play with online to join a great place to start using websites such as Roll20.
If you would like more information about whether DnD could be a suitable option for you contact me with your enquiries.
Comentarios