Downs syndrome and Motorstorm
My downs syndrome son is crazy about a PS3 game called Motorstorm. Now, his interest is not the "normal" competitive, "get in first place" incentive, but rather that the cars are falling apart when they crash, in slow motion even. He is deeply fascinated by this. I think he has a tendency towards autism, which shows in slightly sociopathic ways. He sometimes watches "fails" videos on youtube and similar stuff where people fall or hurt themselves.
In principle I do not have anything against this trait of his, but I try to make him understand that hurting, is not a feeling people want experience but something to avoid inflicting.
With regards to playing the PS3 it makes it hard to do any form of multiplayer stuff where he can engage and share the experience with others, because only he is fascinated by the destruction of the cars. But today it occurred to me, to play in a way that could make us meet each other. I made a deal with him, that every time a car crashed, we had to hand over the controller. This way he could slowly develop a sense that crashing is not beneficial, because he would loose the controller and hand over the game experience. So in the long run an incentive to avoid crashing and staying on track would be incentivized and a common consensus on playing reached, and enabling a social skill towards sharing the game.
(Free writing #1)
That sounds like a super creative way to get the little guy to see crashes are not as cool for others as it is for him. He must get something out of it though he is a boy after all !!
His sister long a lot for socializing with him generally. He keeps much to himself. But making a deal that incentivizes socializing was my point, and i will expand it to other situations if possible
Interesting how we learn from each other.
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