Parent using Minecraft to help her son with AS

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How Minecraft taught my 9 year old son with Asperger's to read and write

I am aware that the title of this blog post is slightly provocative. Good, that's the point. I really want you working in school or you are the parent (like me) were worried that the child would rather play games than do homework and "learn" something to read this post.

Everyone has different learning styles
We all have different ways to take in and process information and knowledge. Some of us learn by practicing, others by theory. Usually a little mix of both.

It is customary to talk about four different learning styles that can be divided into:

Visually - the use of vision to take in knowledge
Auditory - listen and thus bring in knowledge
Kinesthetic / tactile - by doing and performing, use your body to absorb knowledge
In view of the above, therefore, I have long seen games as a viable and powerful educational tool. In addition, the game often mechanisms that trigger motivation and other of our basic needs in a very exciting way.

Mechanisms Games
Gamification has been a buzz-word in 2012, especially in the world of school. The concept of gamification is through game mechanisms increase the motivation to complete a task, for fellowship, finding confidence in their character, problem solving (both individually and as a team), forward guidance, etc.

Living with Asperger's Syndrome
My son has Asperger's syndrome . He is, like all other children, wonderful and stunning with its unique abilities and difficulties that must be overcome. But like many other children (and adults) with Asperger's difficulties can be especially difficult and it is easy to be added easily.

Most often, his son's difficulties inherent in the school environment. At home, we have an environment that gives him great opportunities to succeed in their everyday life and causes him to develop and utilize their full potential. We often use visualization as image map with checklists, timers with different settings and picture cards for choice of activity, etc. In addition, we adapt routines around food (energy refill), physical activity and environment to fit him (as we move not around on things at home, have no strong light sources, adjust audio etc. so that it will not interfere). Socially, we work a lot with social stories (Ritprata) to understand themselves in relation to others, giving him small social tasks, such as going to the bakery and shop etc..

I fully understand that the school has difficulty addressing the same platform and opportunities for my son and his learning. Although it is written in the law. What if it were different!

(Do note that Asperger syndrome has no prospects of talent to do. Most people with Asperger syndrome have normal intelligence or above average.)

Minecraft as a teaching tool
Something happens to my son's self-esteem when he plays. In the game world, he is confident, dare to try things and above all he feels good and clever. He gets friends in the game to practice in the social, feel connected with the groups he plays in and get positive feedback from other players. He exercises also to take defeat and letting others win for the group's sake or for the game to go ahead.

To understand how Minecraft could serve as an educational tool is not enough to read it online, or sit on the sidelines and watch when it's played. Like so much else, we need to listen for yourself to understand and see what opportunities are available.

I wanted to see if I by adapting to my son's learning style and source of motivation as well as a digital teaching tool could help him overcome his difficulties with writing and reading.
Guess where I found the answer to this and so much more!

I dare say that Minecraft is by far one of the most educational digital tools we can find on the market today. Much better than many educational publishers publish in the same field. But it takes a bit of ingenuity, time and dedication to understand the mindset.

How we use Minecraft for learning
I and my son have their own Minecraft account. It costs about $ 200. We play with the "creative" as a creative mode in the game with no monsters or obstacles. We are opening a Minecraft world that we then distribute to our own network at home, so we will just ate "our world".

For the uninitiated, Minecraft likened to a design game where you build up their own environment by using different elements and materials found in nature. You can then use these to create different tools and objects. You can also put up signs and classify things in their environment which we used a lot to justify the writing. Moreover, he has the game been interested in translating from English to Swedish and also to understand other players (who writes in English) when he plays on other platforms.

During the game, I can via the chat feature to write brief instructions to his son which I urge him to do certain tasks. He trains as to read my chat and respond back by writing your own commands. In the beginning this was a little frustrating for him because he wanted to be able to both read and write back quickly. But the game was so motivating that he tragglade with the keys to more and more. In the end it went much faster. I have also started writing down common English phrases and calls him in English to find objects or doing things in the environment.

Since Minecraft is a fairly extensive game and you can not learn everything overnight, calls it even to you yourself seek information from other sources. My son has the game learned how to use YouTube, Google and Wikipedia as a natural way to look for information that can be applied in the game. He has also started to produce their own videos which he publishes on YouTube where he teaches others how the game can go to.

Besides encourage and motivate to read and write, there are other elements that Minecraft offers. I have together with the ICT teacher Annika has produced a map showing how to learn with links to school subjects and syllabus using Minecraft.