from Hacker News

Gobug - Autism Therapy with RC Toy

by danielhitome on 9/7/11, 11:43 AM with 1 comments

• by edgeplay on 9/7/11, 12:12 PM

  I find it unclear how group driving an RC car is supposed to benefit a child with Autism. There was no identification of what autism classification might benefit the most and how. Additionally, while the act of two people standing side by side, directing the car is social (more than 1 person doing something), I fail to see how that interaction is meaningful, as a therapy tool.

  If I was going to stretch on behalf of the article, if the autistic child could initiate all cues, ie turn left, there may be something to that, maybe. Oftentimes, verbal autistic children, that speak in sentences, have the ability to state the obvious or memorized items (scripted echolalia). This discourages spontaneous language and could be counter productive.

  Oftentimes, social therapy has to do with an inability to empathize, failure to read social cues and / or a lack of inclination to interact with others. If the child is watching the car, I fail to see how any of the aforementioned issues are addressed. Furthermore, the vision of the child embracing working together, leading the directional discussion and successfully driving the car, is a very high bar. I think it would be more likely that the child gets frustrated in the inability to complete the task, a typical outcome associated with rigidity.

  I would be interested to read any documentation that suggest or has data contrary to my impression.