Came across an interesting article on play: http://www.child-encyclopedia.com/documents/Smith-PellegriniANGxp.pdf
Smith and Pellegrini (2008) define and explore the role of play - language play, social play, object play, etc. I then tracked down a site dedicated to play therapy http://www.playtherapy.org/ with a mission statement "To be the leading professional organisation, in the world, dedicated to promoting the use of play and creative arts therapies (the therapies) as ways of enabling children to reach their full potential by alleviating emotional, behaviour and mental health problems." Digging around a bit more, I found a digital art group hosted by Ginger Poole, Art Therapist, which offers sessions to teen and pre-teen boys with Asperger's Syndrome. http://gingerpoole.com/?page_id=54
Its purpose:
"With help and support, they will make friends with other digital artists and will learn new techniques. This group also has an online component. The members of the group will post art on a passcode protected blog site and respond to each other throughout the week to enhance the face-to-face relationships."
So what does this all mean for me? I just wrapped up the first two courses of my graduate studies on User-Centred Design. We took on a project to develop an app promoting the acquisition and application of social skills for children with Aspergers. Overwhelmingly, boys are the target audience for this type of work. So what if my thesis went this direction:
1. examine the role and importance of play in our lives - brain-based research
2. study a target group of Aspergers students, presenting them with digital art therapy opportunities. I'm reading through Ginger Poole's website and I don't see any research her work is based upon. I found this article published in Psychology Today by an art therapist Cathy Malchiodi (http://www.cathymalchiodi.com/):
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-healing-arts/200911/art-therapy-meets-digital-art-and-social-multimedia.
Here, she cites some of the research being done on Aspergers and the digital arts. Project Spectrum leverages the visual and spacial strengths of students with Aspergers by providing opportunities to represent designs in a 3-D environment. The Youtube video on this site is worthwhile. http://www.google.com/educators/spectrum.html
3. My goal: to determine how access to classroom-based digital arts programming improves social and/or academic outcomes for those diagnosed with Aspergers. Some products to explore: Google Sketchup, Animoto, Xtranormal.
Have you considered broadening the focus, Universal Design for Learning style, to include all learners? See Doug Thomas and John Seely Brown's latest book, A New Culture of Learning, on the role of play and how seriously they take our human ability to learn through play.
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