Nintendo Wii Offers New Incentive for Autistic Children
It was a good few months ago when we first had an opportunity to let one of our staffers try his hand at the most unusual of modern-era video game systems; the Nintendo Wii. Our own senior staff contributor, Patrick, is himself doubly qualified to love this system. First of all, he’s autistic, and secondly, he’s played the Wii… and his love of it went so far beyond “like” it wasn’t even funny.
As a high-functioning autistic, he’s generally erratic and typically bouncy in his manic disposition. Even though the parents have been well aware of the Wii for a good many months, and had even been begged to play it by our uncle Paul, we never succumbed. Nothing against Paul nor Nintendo, it just didn’t seem a likely candidate for a thing we could appreciate, but boy were we wrong.
So we were at this parent/child fun evening, and we got to play it. Sure enough, Brendan and Dominic were too young too enjoy or even understand it, even though Patrick was right in the game’s youngest-age wheelhouse.
Here’s the big thing. As a young sufferer of autism, he’s typically incapable or reigning in his emotions or even his bodily movements… well, the Wii taught him something new; restraint. He really, really wanted to play, and the Wii is incapable of making accommodations for being “a bouncy person”, so he had to give up the game entirely or reign in his actions… and he chose to reign in.
Can you imagine that? Just the simple virtue of a video game is enough to make an autistic child slow down, pause, think and carefully consider his actions in order to play the game… and beyond that, can you imagine that it actually would work?
So our parental folk waited until just after Christmas to buy their best deal on it, and they hit up the local Walmart to buy it. Turns out it’s as cheap there as any place you can find online, so check them out whether online or in person before you buy it elsewhere.
So we bought it, the parents checked it out and approved it, and now it’s on to us kids loving it.
The youngest in our gaggle are too young to really love it, though the play still takes place, but for eldest brother Patrick, the very guy for whom the system was bought, it’s already shown itself to be quite a fantastic tool for teaching lessons of moderation.
Here’s what he’s had to do to play it:
He cleans his bedroom, as well as the playroom, in order to qualify to play it.
He controls his hand gestures, and even coordinates 2-hands for play (which is tricky even for adults.)
He has played some games enough to learn the patience and control needed to make little guys jump up and around to get to the next level as needed… and,
He has learned to play as a team member, whether with his mom or dad,
When he can’t make things work right, he’s learned to ask for help, rather than simply break down in frustration.
This game system has taught him lessons so critical to his development, and all under the guise of “having fun” that the results are almost indescribable. The game system isn’t free, of course, but it is affordable, especially when it comes to helping a young, impressionable (grade-school age) autism sufferer learn new coping mechanisms.
It’s at moments like this, you know, when we’re giving a product such a glowing recommendation, that I just wish we were sponsored by these guys, because this is the sort of publicity money can’t buy… only the product itself can buy it, and the Nintendo Wii is, at least in our estimation, exactly every bit that good.
