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LittleBigPlanet Helps Special Needs Kids Communicate?�

by Shak Hussain - February 11th, 2009

You wouldn't expect it, but it's possible that LittleBigPlanet may help special needs children to communicate with others, especially autistic children, if a recent story is to be believed. Here's the story so you can judge for yourself: "My son has been diagnosed to be on the Autism spectrum, where he has some issues and one of them is social communication. We used video games on a PC as a teaching tool getting him to interact with the game and with us. I have always played with him, with him sitting on my lap and getting him to understand. Since then his love of video games have grown. As of two years ago I got a PlayStation 3 as a gift – which of course we all love except for my wife. Sometimes my son plays Lego Star Wars or Indiana Jones, but he only focuses on the game and doesn’t interact with anyone else, which can be frustrating. We want him to interact with us more and not less. I had to really monitor his play time so he is not totally engrossed in the games. After listening to you discussing Little Big Planet, I really got interested in the whole game, and like a flash, I figured out a way to get my son into another fun game and also get him to interact with everyone else. So Santa delivered a new copy of Little Big Planet and a third controller this year. LBP bridged the gap between a 'boys game' and a 'girls game' perfectly, so my daughter is having fun with it, I’m also playing with that third controller. Here is the best part though; the communication between my son and my daughter and myself has been amazing. My son is engaging with his sister to solve the levels; like how to get that sticker that is sitting high above – and he's also telling me what I need to do to help. On New Year’s Eve I ended up with laryngitis from all the talking I was doing with the kids! My wife was also very pleased with the my sons engagement and social communication by using something that he really loves (that being video games.)" Source: What They Play

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