Scientists aim to improve education of autistic children with board games

[Geordie]

SCIENTISTS have used traditional games such as Guess Who and 20 Questions in the hope of improving the education of children with autism.

A team at Edinburgh University found that those with autism struggled to use simple categories to effectively play the games.

Ben Alderson-Day, who led the study, said: ?The thing that?s good about Guess Who and other tasks like Twenty Questions is that kids have to come up with their own questions to play the game - and quite often we find that children with autism find that hard, even when they seem to know all the relevant words or categories that they would need.?

As children with autism often find it difficult to process human faces, the researchers adapted the Guess Who format to use either robots or everyday objects. They compared the performance of children with autism and Aspergers with deaf children and a control group without a diagnosis.

The researchers explained: ?People expect that those with autism will have systematic problem solving strategies but we?ve shown this is not the case.?

The problems sorting information into appropriately sized categories in this way is similar to that seen in deaf children whereas the Aspergers participants performed better. The researchers think it is linked to delays in early language development.

Mr Alderson-Day added: ?This sort of thing is useful for education, as it gives us clues as to how to help people with autism apply the knowledge that they have in effective ways.?

Scientists aim to improve education of autistic children with board games - Education - Scotsman.com