Minecraft is played by millions of children across the country, and for good reason. The level of creativity it encourages in its “sandbox” environment is appealing, especially to children with autism. Through my clinical practice, I constantly encounter kids on the autism spectrum who love to play Minecraft. Their parents frequently have mixed feelings about the game and their children’s level of engagement with it. Many of these kids are engaged and talking to their friends about their Minecraft play — positive side effects of their gameplay — yet sometimes the kids just can’t get away from the screen when it comes to this incredibly absorbing game.
As a child psychologist, I’ve had a chance to interview a number of children and teenagers affected by autism whose favorite game is Minecraft.
Here are just a few of the responses from kids on the spectrum I’ve questioned about their love of this game:
Lucas Russell
There are no rules. As mentioned above, one of the biggest commonalities I found in interviewing children with Autism about their love of Minecraft is the freedom that they have to play in the sandbox environment of the game. In more than 20 separate interviews, children spoke about how “you can build anything” and that there are no set rules about how to choose what to work on. This is especially interesting, considering the fact that kids affected by Autism generally desire repetition, rules, and knowing what to expect.
It’s easy to get into. Minecraft also allows players to start with simple creations before moving to the complex. For children on the autism spectrum, it may be good to build at their own pace and in a manner in which they are comfortable without being overwhelmed. My colleague, Erinn H. Finke, Ph.D., CCC-SLP described this perspective in a workshop we presented at the annual Games for Health Conference in 2014. Finke explained that kids with autism see Minecraft as a “place they can get” and where they can have control. She noted that Minecraft is a “world where they are knowledgeable…and can be successful, allowing them to navigate the video game world rather than the real world.”
It’s real but it’s not. Many children enjoy Minecraft due to the simple fact that its gameworld possesses a similar logic to the real world, but that it can be more easily manipulated and has less permanence. A young man of 15 once told me, “It’s like real life, it’s not realistic but it has a nice feel to it like real life… like I can use resources to make a house or city. I like that I can kill other players when they’re mining a diamond. Once you find one diamond you want more.”
Eli Jenkins
You can build whatever you want. A 14-year-old teen diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder told me he likes to play Minecraft because you can do whatever you want in the game and don’t have to follow any certain story. “I can build whatever I want as big as I want like churches and roller coasters,” said another boy of 15.
You can follow your own interests. A 12-year-old affected by Autism described Minecraft as “fun, because you get to kill zombies, creepers and endermen. I like the bedrock…it can’t be destroyed, just like obsidian.” This same young man then began to talk about other obscure Minecraft facts that I could not follow, which is consistent with what is often observed about kids on the spectrum when discussing a special interest. Often, kids with Autism like obscure and idiosyncratic parts of a popular game or technology, so that while they might share an interest in something popular like Minecraft, their particular passion may be dissimilar to their peers.
Minecraft is forgiving. As with Legos, there is virtually nothing that you can do in Minecraft that is actually wrong, that a player cannot take apart and try again. While in some modes of Minecraft players can get “killed,” they can always come back again. In the creative mode, which most of the kids with Autism that I interviewed like best, players do not need to be concerned with someone destroying or changing their creations.
People can’t mess up your stuff. This control over creations is very alluring to players with Autism. An 11 year old boy diagnosed previously with PDD-NOS noted how he could build anything he wanted and “people can’t make fun of it” He also stated that he could “kick people off” if you don’t want to play with them.
Matthew Gray
Minecraft provides a vibrant world in which creativity, exploration, and productivity occurs on the player’s terms. Particularly in the creative mode, Minecraft allows the player to have a great deal of control over their environment. Minecraft also rewards discovery in a way that does not prompt anxiety and fear. While many children with Autism crave routine and familiarity, Minecraft becomes a safe place to develop flexibility. They are able to explore an unknown world and face fears without giving up safety.
Dominic Davis
So it's basically just cancerous escapism for them, what a suprise.
Noah Davis
Check 'em
Andrew Hughes
What the hell is with the prevalency of autism in male children in this day and age? It can't be totally due to women having their children in their later years; my mum was 44 (FOURTY-FOUR) when I was born and I only ended with with intense social anxiety and sociopathy.
David Hill
Your days are numbered faggot.
Angel Sanchez
why are the underages faggot still clinging to this board?
Dylan Flores
Letting women over 30 have children was a mistake.
Parker Ortiz
The tolerance level for diagnosing kids with autism is increasing, just as it's already done with ADHD. Oh, your kid likes to go outside and run around? ADHD, here's twenty different pills. Same concept - oh, your kid likes to be a little imaginative and he has fun making creations? Autism.
James Wilson
like this poor sod?
John Fisher
It's basically because it's Legos?
Luis Rodriguez
This is just explaining the appeal of Minecraft. If only Mojang understood and didn't ruin the game in beta 1.8
Jaxon Sanchez
never trust a shifty swede who sells out to fame before even completing his game
Dominic Lee
If it could have been great why have none of the clones ever managed to achieve that greatness?
Gabriel Stewart
because modders are more talented
Matthew Hernandez
user, I'm sorry to tell you that's a tranny, not a cuteboy or a trap.
Connor Mitchell
...
Samuel Nguyen
Today I saw God, and he was smiling. She's right about the Mega Blocks. MB makes their stuff out of lower quality plastic. The colours look unattractive and the pieces break easier. And the more fiddly pieces are usually shit. Mega Blocks men are to Lego men as Hotwheels is to a regular person. They do make some decent stuff but their similar products are always inferior and they do make plenty of rubbish.
Andrew Gonzalez
HEY WAIT JUST A COTTON PICKING MINUTE! Where the fuck do you get maroon, cyan, orange, light green and purple Lego bricks from?
Sebastian Baker
I have seen that first pic so many times, but no matter what, it still looks like his cock has morphed with his hand.
Jaxon Myers
The patent for lego bricks has expired, so anyone can make them nowadays.
Charles Richardson
There was a patent? What exactly was patented?
Hunter Stewart
The bricks.
Samuel Ortiz
You mean the bricks that Mega Blocks have been producing exact replicas of for decades?
Aiden Hughes
The original patent expired in 2011. Now everyone can make them without worrying about lawsuits.
Bentley Williams
If you're pointing to the post above you, you'd be correct. But if you're referring to your post?
You failed, dude.
Carter Russell
opinion discarded
Liam Reed
"high functioning" end of of the autism spectrum here; minecraft is fucking dumb. there is no point. it's literally fucking nothing. at least legos you could feel with your hands.
i bet the kids in the study have other mental disorders if they actually love minecraft.
Landon Wilson
You sound like you're underage
Julian Perry
You can, but Lego brand manufactures them with tolerances down to the 1000th of an inch, and I remember reading an article that explained how they can only produce a certain number of bricks per mold before they have to replace the mold. Otherwise the bricks fall out of tolerance and no longer give (and keep) the satisfying snap. polite sage
Jordan Sanders
40 is pretty young I guess.
Grayson Johnson
I guess that explains why the kits are so mother-fucking expensive.
Zachary Wood
So why wasn't Mega Blocks sued?
Anthony White
Soon studios will hire autismos to learn how to get the most bucks from the autistic demography.
Evan Martin
Sadly, even autists can have normalfag tastes.
Brody Smith
...
Luis Perez
Yes. What I don't understand is why parents let their kids "play" Minecraft when things like Logo exist. As a child my progression of system investigation -> creation -> mastery moved me rapidly from Lincoln logs to Legos to Logo programming language.
The best part about this is I can say I learned my first programming language 33 years ago, and the skillset is applicable to every new programming language. Minecraft is teaching or honing any such skills. So ask yourself what the 7yo autist Minecraft player is going to be doing 33 years from now.
Jack Edwards
Good. Soon the age of autism in video games can begin.
Jeremiah Young
It does actually have a "point" added by the devs though: to defeat the enderdragon. It's just that most people ignore that aspect of the game and rather build ugly buildings all day.
Joshua Miller
So what happens if you feel just as awkward in the virtual world as in the physical world?
Dylan Foster
Sadly most parents people haven't even heard of Logo or anything similar.
Joseph Garcia
You could escape into the metaphysical world, the dreamlands.
Cooper Hernandez
...
Ayden Phillips
Every MMO experience I had was the same. Too much time spent trying to find interesting people or at least people with shared interests. Worse would be getting so into it that you write a plugin, and thet get called names even though people love and use your plugin.
Also, servers shutting down is a pretty shit feeling as an autist. It's the ultimate form of removal of control. The sad part is I think autists that like Minecraft don't have the facilite to realize this and move on to focus on expressing themselves through things that last.
Alexander Nelson
Because the only people who buy mega blocks are the people who can't afford legos.
Jack Jones
Except there are a ton of rules, none of which are explained in the game If you read the wiki and obsessively watch Minecraft youtubers, I guess It's such a broken game that they can't even make water work correctly. As long as it's ugly and blocky and you have a dozen mod packs installed As long as your interests are digging, dying, micromanaging your inventory, and placing cubes in stacks. Sure if forgiving when you accidentally open up a wall with lava on the other side and it burns everything you owned. the hunger system is so forgiving too! Creepers, lightning strikes, mobs spawning in low light, lava, hunger, an assbackward spawn system, shit coding that sometimes crashes your game.. And this doesn't even include online griefers.
Juan Gomez
Autism is just the latest broad convenient excuse for being a failure. Can't take the responsibility if you've got a disorder. It's not your fault you suck!
I've also got a cousin who's got the really fucked up severe version, it took him until he was 12 to even interact with other people without shrieking like a retard. Luckily his adolescence ended before Minecraft existed and he poured his attention into more useful things. He built a sweet sandrail from junk.
Jose Jones
I kinda love building stuff and I even waste hours building things when I'm allowed in a game.
Does that make me autist?
Stop giving me an autist girl fetish.
Carter Garcia
My nephew has some autism I believe, also an age retrass, so both his mind and his body is much younger than his real age.
At least the boy is managing to talk and not pissing himself and he is 5.
I'm his godfather and it breaks my heart thinking he might suffer the older he gets.
Dominic Stewart
S P I N N I N G O B J E C T S P I N N I N G
O B J E C T S
Juan Myers
All those things sound like things KIDS would like in general. An interesting read but only further my theory that autism is the latest in ADHD/ass burger king/"something is wrong with your child and there is nothing you can do to help them" scam.
No shit, they are kids. No shit, kids a dumb, that is why they go to school in the first place. Schools becoming daycares was a mistake. Again, no shit.
This is listed twice. Technically this is counted 3 times.
Robert Sanchez
I think it's more that kids don't have the attentionspan/patience to spend a lot of time trying to learn something. I also find it interesting that they added "it's easy" because I thought autists were supposed to be better at stuff like math and studying than the average child. It's like they are just making up symptons and changing them on the go.
Carter Martin
because they are.
Eli Foster
Everything listed is just what ALL children crave when developing. They want to explore, try new things, and even create stuff. A child would explore wooded areas or play with other children outside. This is all being simulated by Minecraft.
The rise of this 'disease' can be traced to women having kids at an older age in higher numbers, as well as lazy ass fucking parents who'd rather place their child in front of technology as a form of babysitting. Children in the middle class and up are no longer receiving proper social stimulation nor nowhere near enough outdoor activity Children shouldn't have unrestricted access to computers. Hell they shouldn't even be able to use them on their own until the age of 13 or so.
Sebastian Scott
Worse:
Jaxson Phillips
Technology in general has created a dreamless, thoughtless, and especially uncreative species. The computer is the great evil of this age, and some great hero of boundless valour will have to destroy it.
Cameron Morris
The best goyim.
Aiden Parker
I've always called the internet the modern Tower of Babel. To completely eradicate something so useful seems pointless. There must be a middle ground
Did you even read what I posted?
Gabriel Sullivan
...
Blake Morales
Step it up and stop being a slave.
Landon Hall
Fair enough, it was the other retard that said that. It's funny you should bring up the Tower of Babel though, the kikes tore that down to the point the normalfags think it's a bad thing and the word babel means empty words. I would bet my last shekel that the Tower was too unkosher and the yids had to remove it. The fact that the internet is beginning to be treated the same makes me feel we are just going to repeat history.
Noah Hernandez
How are the Jews trying to destroy the electronic menace? They're profiting as it destroys the minds of millions, through software sales, through data manipulation, through calculated procedures to divide the already demoralized populace and so on. They too will pay the technological toll.
Sebastian Gray
Try to be factually right. The yids can use the internet but so can bad goyim. That's the key.
Levi Reed
They want full control over it so they can line their pockets with but more money. Money that will be rendered useless as everything goes digital, money that will become but mere pennies in comparison to the electronic dollar of the future.
Hudson Fisher
Talk about being short sighted.
Jaxon Reyes
Checks out
Liam Smith
How else do you measure power? The vast majority of Jews have abandoned their spiritual and religious holdings, their national epics and their belief in divine right. They opt for a secular superiority complex.
Camden Jones
Which especially sucks because there are ways to help autistic kids that don't even involve meds.
Austin Murphy
Go lone wolf it and get a bullet to the head, retard.
Jacob Garcia
Like beating them until they're normal?
Luke Cooper
Probably. Did it work for you?
Asher Morgan
Well I'm here aren't I? Take a wild guess.
Kayden Sanders
because the pharmaceutical industry wants money, user it also has to do with women over 30 having children and phones making children become socially awkward
but yeah, if the pharmaceutical industry wants money, they can have psychologists give false diagnoses you're a loner? no no you're autistic, buy these pills, including SSRIs because you're also depressed, and also buy this ritalin or adderall so the sleepiness side effect of the SSRIs don't hurt your performance in school you're daydreaming in class? no no you suffer from ADD, buy these pills you're an angsty teenager? no no you have bipolar disorder, buy these pills
oh what that you're getting new problems because of the pills you're taking? take these pills goy they'll cure your side effects
Brayden Baker
does this mean vidya is finally going to stop being "cool"?
Jonathan Clark
that's one spooky t-rex user
Ryder Perez
Top jej
Jordan Nelson
I want to fuck Jason
Elijah Adams
The answer to the picture is skill
Ayden White
Nigga Lego breaks so easy that it does so entirely on its own. I cannot count how many cracked pieces I have from things I've simply built as instructed and left alone for a month. I've built with cheap china shit that was of higher quality than Lego. Cultists should kill themselves. Alternatives and true creative freedom are far superior
Mason Lewis
What the hell did I just walk into?
Jason King
Autism
Logan Parker
holy fuck not that I'm surprised but still, I'm grateful for not being a kid in the ((((current))))) year
Jack Jenkins
I too love to build brown bricks in minecraf
Juan Parker
What?
Nolan Hall
...
Tyler Wright
There is no magic pill for autism. Even weed doesn't dampen its effects.
t.autist in therapy
Gabriel Reyes
Glad I'm not the only one.
Noah Cooper
Probably going to go for it. Even alcohol doesn't relieve stress like a good Indica does.