Gamification Of Autism: A Guide To Clinical Psychology, Cyberpsychology and Psychotherapy: An Introductory Series

By Connor Whiteley

A perfect book for psychology students and professionals interested in serious games and autism.

Autistic children struggle with several areas of life, like communication, play and social skills, so they can need help in everyday life. Serious games and the gamification of autism offers great potential and tools for autistic people. Yet there are fascinating benefits and problems with the field.

By the end of this great, easy-to-understand book, you'll know:

• What is gamification and serious games?
• What are the benefits of serious games for autistic people?
• What Are the Methodological and literature issues?
• How Do we fix these problems?

Psychology students and professionals will love this great, conversational and engaging book.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: CGD Publishing
• Release date: Dec 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215634585

Connor Whiteley

Hello, I'm Connor Whiteley, I am an 18-year-old who loves to write creatively, and I wrote my Brownsea trilogy when I was 14 years old after I went to Brownsea Island on a scout camp. At the camp, I started to think about how all the broken tiles and pottery got there and somehow a trilogy got created.Moreover, I love writing fantasy and sci-fi novels because you’re only limited by your imagination.In addition, I'm was an Explorer Scout and I love camping, sailing and other outdoor activities as well as cooking.Furthermore, I do quite a bit of charity work as well. For example: in early 2018 I was a part of a youth panel which was involved in creating a report with research to try and get government funding for organised youth groups and through this panel. I was invited to Prince Charles’ 70th birthday party and how some of us got in the royal photograph.Finally, I am going to university and I hope to get my doctorate in clinical psychology in a few years.

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

If you go onto any app store, autism support group or anywhere to be honest and search for games or items designed to help autistic people, then you will find some type of serious game. Since the gamification of autism is becoming more and more popular and even more apps, games and toys are being developed to help autistic people.

There are tons of apps and other examples of serious games designed to teach autistic people social skills, life skills and other important skills that they sometimes lack due to their condition. Yet the gamification of autism raises a critical question that needs to be answered.

How effective actually are these games?

What Will This Book Cover?

In this great, easy-to-understand and fascinating book, you’ll learn about:

What Is The Gamification Of Autism And Why Is It Important?

What Are The Benefits Of Serious Games?

What Are The Problems With The Gamification Literature?

Then finally we look at How Do We Solve These Problems?

We cover a lot of ground in this topic and by the end of this book, you will have a great understanding of the gamification of autism, its benefits and its problems.

Who Is This Book For?

As with all of my nonfiction books, this book is aimed at psychology students and professionals, but other people with an interest in learning more about psychology are always welcome to join the ride. This book is focused on people who want to learn about autism and the different serious games that are currently being developed to help autistic people.

Since serious games and gamification is being sold to the general public, clinical psychologists and other mental health professionals as an amazing answer that will transform the lives of autistic people for the better.

But is this really true?

That’s the focus of this book.

Therefore, if you want to learn more about autism, serious games and take your understanding of possible interventions to the next level. Then you will love this great, easy-to-understand and engaging book.

Who Am I?

Personally, I always like to know the author of the nonfiction I read so I know the information is coming from a good source, because citations and references (something this book contains plenty of) only tells one side of the story.

In case you’re like me, I’m Connor Whiteley, the author of over 35 psychology books including internationally bestselling books Forensic Psychology and Criminal Profiling.

Additionally, I am the host of the weekly The Psychology World Podcast, available on all major podcast apps and YouTube. The podcast examines different psychology topics each week and according to Spotify Wrapped 2022, the podcast is listened to in 41 countries.

Finally, I am a psychology graduate from the University of Kent, England specialising in Psychology With Clinical Psychology and a Placement Year.

Now that we know more about each other, let’s start diving into the fascinating and rather shocking world of the gamification of autism.

HOW DID THIS BOOK COME ABOUT AND WHY IS IT INTERESTING?

After writing this entire book, I realised that I needed to explain upfront about how this book came to be and most importantly, why is gamification of autism is an interesting topic when it is definitely far from the mainstream.

I’ll answer one question straight away.

The gamification of autism is a brilliant topic because I truly hope that this field is successful in developing apps, toys and games that help autistic people to learn skills that they might struggle with in everyday life. There is truly a massive potential behind this field, and whilst we will get into definitions, aims and what gamification actually is in the next chapter, I wanted to mention upfront why I think this is such a brilliant area.

Basically, I want this area of autism research to be successful because if it has the right methodology, research practices and more then this could be of great benefit to autistic people and really help them to thrive.

That’s why in the book we’re going to be looking at the benefits, problems and suggested improvements for gamification.

How Did This Book Come About?

In case you’re brand-new to me as an author, psychology graduate and podcaster, during the 2021/22 academic year, I did a research placement year (just think a year of work experience in research and academia) at the University of Kent, working alongside a great academic researcher that was so great I decided to have him as my Dissertation Supervisor in my final year of university, and a brilliant PhD student.

During this academic placement year, one of the research projects I did was to comb through over a thousand academic papers in order to write an academic literature review of the gamification of autism. I wrote up the first and second draft of the literature review, loved the topic and