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Alumnus Peter Jung uses the board game Dungeons & Dragons to help neurodivergent kids create community.
A spotlight on Peter Jung, writer of the @RollForKindness blog. I have posted many of Peter's articles, followed him closely and love the work he's doing with Applied Gaming including using D&D and TTRPGs with Autistic and Neurodivergent Kids.
GUESS WHAT I FINISHED TODAY!!!!
...my research proposal draft....
TIL ... And You Will, Too!
TIL that the negative stereotypes regarding gamers (and, presumably Dungeons & Dragons players) came about (in the 1980s) as the result of disassociative theory (which is what I’m calling it).
See, in the 1980s, latch-key kids was a thing, as more and more families moved to two-income households. More time at work, however, meant less time with kids. If there were something upon which parents could place blame for any misbehaviors of their children (except for themselves), it would relieve the guilt of having two incomes.
Enter electronic media. In the 1970s, discotheques were the dens of iniquity; electronic forms of entertainment in the early 1980s were demonic. If it was something that the children could (or would) do when their parents weren’t around, it was the scapegoat du jour for children’s (mis)behavior. Child has pierced their nose and shaved their hair into a mohawk? ROCK MUSIC VIDEOS! Child is anti-social and withdrawn? COMPUTER USE! The media, as well, contributed to the video game scare by associating playing these games with Random Acts of Stupidity (which was more of a 1990s thing...see Columbine incident).
The same thing was going on, at the same time, with Dungeons & Dragons. 1979, a child prodigy went missing from his dorm room at Michigan State University and was found in the utility tunnels under the university; the following year, he committed suicide as a result of a slew of mental health issues. It was Dungeons & Dragons’ fault. In 1982, a high school student shot himself in the chest because he was depressed about not being able to fit in with his classmates; nope! Dungeons & Dragons’ fault! It was from this second incident that the association Bothered About Dungeons & Dragons (BADD) formed in 1983. BADD’s mission was to convince fundamentalist Christians (and anyone else who would listen) that D&D was an occult-based game that would use actual voodoo spells to harm people. Science, however, has never been able to find a significant link (as in, there is no overwhelming numbers to prove causation or even correlation) between either violence in video games causing violence in the real world, nor playing D&D and suicide/school shootings.
....two more decades for historical information on applied gaming... then I get to talk about Dungeons & Dragons(R), and compare/contrast computer simulation games of the 1950s & 60s with traditional RPGs played via Fantasy Grounds... Then I get to talk about game theory and motivational theory and all these other really awesome things that I think normal people would probably just stare, blankly, at me and say, “...qua...?”
...but, it’s the historic information I’m having trouble getting through.... it’s like a standard research paper, establishing that, yes, this has been a thing for 60 years.... but, I wanna just move on to the fun parts of synthesis and analysis....
....I also want to go back to bed, but I really want to get this thing done so I can start my edits and get it submitted and schedule the preliminary oral defense so I can start experimenting!!
