Autism Paper 5: Harnessing Video Games to Teach Cognitive Skills to Children with Autism, Oct/2010

AUTISM: Practical Tips on Teaching Children with Mild/Moderate Autism in Mainstream Schools

This is a series of ten papers written by three experienced special education professionals who have worked directly with individuals with autistic learning and behavioural difficulties. Presented in an easy readable style, the authors have provided essential know what, know why and know how when teaching children with mild/moderate autism in mainstream schools.

Beginning with defining autism, identifying and profiling autistic learning and behavioural difficulties through planning lessons, conducting learning/behavioural support activities, counselling, intervening through video games/drawings/peer support, parental involvement to teaching mathematical concepts, operations and applications, the authors hope to share with their readers the practical tips on how they can go about teaching these exceptional children.

Paper 5: Harnessing Video Games to Teach Cognitive Skills to Children with Autism

Highlights: Children with autism are often seen to be interested and engrossed in playing commercial video games on dedicated game consoles such as Nintendo Wii, Sony Playstation 3 or Microsoft Xbox 360. Most are able to somehow make sense of game play and even advance in game play without reading game manuals, listening or even reading instructions from the game play itself. Apparently, the child with autism must have learnt something from the game play in order to win some levels. Parents and educators alike are often found wondering how they may tap the intense interest and informal learning in game play and transform the learning into tangible formal learning familiar in schools. The paper is an attempt to explain how to harness the informal learning from video games for the learning of cognitive skills needed in formal education with detailed explanations and illustrations from a Nintendo Wii game.

About The Author:
Norman Kiak Nam KEE, M.Tech, M.Ed., a former secondary school teacher, is a lecturer with the Early Childhood and Special Needs Education Academic Group at the National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Prior to this current appointment, he was a specialist writer/project leader with the Curriculum Development Institute of Singapore (CDIS), Ministry of Education, to develop the Dynamic Mathematics Series (a computer-based learning software) whose Jungle Survival with Quadratic Equations (a CD-ROM) has won three international awards in 1997: the Macromedia People's Choice Award for Educational Multimedia in San Francisco, USA; the International Digital Media Award for Best Educational CD-ROM Overall in Toronto, Canada; and the International Digital Media Award for Best Educational CD-ROM in K-12 Category in Toronto, Canada. Later, he left the CDIS to join Singapore Polytechnic to set up and maintain its e-learning infra-structure.

A former Ministry of Education scholar (1993) at the SEAMEO Regional Education Centre for Science and Mathematics (RECSAM), Penang, Malaysia, Mr Kee was an evaluation panel committee member at the National Infocomm Competency Centre (NICC), Singapore, from 2003-2006, contributing to the development of professional certification in IT education. Currently, he is pursuing his PhD research study on autism spectrum disorders at the National Institute of Education.

Mr Norman Kee is married with three sons.