Asperger’s
Kids and Media Exposure
It’s easy for parenting magazines to tell you that you should know
what your children are watching, or listening to, or playing on the x-box
or playstation, or surfing on the internet. As a practical matter, it’s
just too much. Your choices as a parent are to give up, or to simplify
the task.
One of the ways to simplify the task is to take advantage of rating systems.
Unfortunately, this is nearly useless if your child has a social developmental
delay. TV14 and PG13 aren’t green lights for your fifteen year-old
who is eight socially. Even G-ratings aren’t necessarily a comfort,
because we have to remember that “delay” isn’t the whole
picture with Asperger’s. Because Aspies have trouble with context
and reality-testing, cartoons and fantasy violence can be just as real
to them as the most graphically violent R-rated film. Nobody dies in Scooby-Doo,
but people do tend to get bonked on the head and see stars. Can your child
put this into context?
Perhaps the hardest thing for us "neurotypicals" to understand
is how much difficulty AS children can have with satire. Watch one episode
of The Simpsons and try to interpret everything literally and you will
see what a minefield television and movies are for AS kids.
Some inconclusive research has suggested a connection between AS and violent
behavior. Scragg and Shah (1994) found 1.5% of a forensic (violent) hospitalized
population met diagnostic criteria for AS (considerably higher than the
general population). Dr. Luke Tsai, director of Autism programs at the
University of Michigan, has noted that in his clinical experience Aspies
have a tendency to talk about violence and to be drawn to violent media.
A possible explanation for this phenomenon is that violence is a highly
simplified form of social interaction, and therefore attractive to those
for whom nuance is a challenge. At the very least, we understand that
Aspie kids usually refrain from hitting because they are following a rule,
not because they anticipate the social ramifications.
Some suggestions for navigating the minefield:
TELEVISION
1. Get a TIVO, a Netflix subscription, or buy videos. Then you can make
the whole TV schedule off-limits. With total control you can approve of
one show at a time, when you have time to screen.
2. Share ratings with other Asperger’s parents.
3. Quiz your child on comprehension and talk through the meaning of the
show.
4. Watch out for complex characters and ambiguous morality. Squeeky-clean
good guys work for Aspie kids; dark anti-hero vigilantes don’t.
5. Limit TV-time. The best of it is rarely better than time-out for the
brain.
VIDEO GAMES
1. There is growing evidence that the interactivity of video games makes
them more influential than television in terms of violent attitudes and
behaviors. Just throw out all of the violent ones today. Even the cute
violent ones. Remember that Aspies are looking to learn social rules,
and one of the reasons they are so attracted to video games is that the
"rules" are easier to learn. But those rules don't usually travel
well into the real world.
2. Coming soon to our links page: a list of recommended "good"
video games.
INTERNET
1. Internet filtering software just doesn’t work. Services like
AOL’s Young Teen Control do work, because they restrict access not
through an algorithm but through a list of approved sites checked by actual
human beings.
2. Unless you are certain that your child cannot defeat your safe-surfing
arrangements, supervise all internet activity.
3. Download free trial software at mediadetective.com to check your computer
for pornography. (And please don’t kill the messenger when you find
it.)
4. Try to become aware of the automatic screening-out of unwanted material
that non-AS people do when they are searching the web. Whether it's pornography
or just irrelevant search results, most people develop a powerful ability
to half-see and then quickly forget material that they don't want. AS
kids cannot do this.
MUSIC
1. If you don’t understand the lyrics, chances are your AS child
doesn’t either.
2. Eventually some other child is going to explain those lyrics to your
child. Do you want your child to hear that explanation?
ABOVE ALL
Find safe places for your child to play outside. The effort to find or
form an AS-friendly community is worth the return. Maybe we can help!
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