Why WOULDN'T an autistic kid love Siri??
"She" is polite, follows the rules of conversation (one might say with well-trained autistic perfection), does not use sarcasm, does not have a hidden agenda ("her" developers might be a different story, but conspiracy theories are pretty far from a kid's mind). "She" is polite, helpful, and does not reject a child for asking incorrectly for help (the worst "she" will do is gently and politely steer you toward the proper format for asking).
On top of that, "she" doesn't scold you for slouching, criticize the Thomas the Tank Engine sweatshirt and gray sweatpants that have to get washed every night so they can be worn every day, demand eye contact, or otherwise judge you. "She" is the ultimate in safe conversational partners...
...and as if that wasn't good enough, she's actually HAPPY to dispense information, in mundane detail, on the dullest topics in the world, all day, every day.
AUTISTIC KID NIRVANA!! !!
One worries, of course, that they will stay happy with Siri and not move on to having "real" interactions with real people.
But nature is funny like that-- most of them will. Because most of them WANT to. It's just that it's dangerous, terribly dangerous, and they don't know HOW. Siri can help with that, because it really IS a safe place to learn some fundamentals. Siri is programmed to be firmly polite, Siri doesn't have a temper to lose, and Siri has all the time in the world.
Some of them won't. And nature is funny like that, too-- because the ones that don't, probably won't ever miss it. If they can be polite, whether in speech, AAC, or PECS while they're totally declining interaction with flesh-and-blood humans...
...well, it's sort of hard for me to understand, and it seems sad even from the lonely little prison of agoraphobia that I live in where my kids, my husband, and the Internet are my main connections to the world outside my house, but MAYBE THAT'S OK TOO.
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"Alas, our dried voices when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless, as wind in dry grass, or rats' feet over broken glass in our dry cellar." --TS Eliot, "The Hollow Men"
19 Oct 2014, 2:08 pm
Kind of like having someone like STAR TREK's Data for a friend--which I would have loved while growing up.
