Interview: Karen Osborne talks about treating Asperger Syndrome through Second Life

Posted on April 23, 2008 at 8:00 am

Karen Osborne is a research clinician at the University of Texas Center for Brain Health. Her background is in speech pathology. She is now coordinating the project that works on social skills and spoke to me about a new project that works with children and adults who have disabilities that impair their understanding of social cues and interactions, including Asperger syndrome, high functioning autism, ADHD, traumatic brain injury, and schizophrenia. They are using the online community Second Life to create an environment that gives these patients a way to test their social skills that gives them better feedback than previous treatments. It has been in development for two years and has been used with patients since last summer.
Tell me a little bit about your program and how it got started.
In the past, therapists have worked with autistic children through role playing, stories, and rules. But the brain changes not by learning rules but by engaging in activities. Sandy Chapman had the idea to use virtual reality to immerse the patients in the environments that are similar to real life. It is not really role playing because they become the character. It adds a little more realism to the therapy aspect. In role playing it is hard to get past the fact that you’re playing with the therapist, but in virtual reality it is more like meeting for the first time and building a relationship.
Second Life has some wild corners. How do you control the environment?
Right now we’re using a private and secure island on Second Life with only people we let in. Patients can log in and be part of it. They get to create a character that represents themselves as closely as possible.

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School children force-fed avertising on the bus

Posted on April 19, 2008 at 10:00 am

The New York Times reports that a special radio channel has been installed in school buses. It plays music that kids like, and it plays commercials. The content is provided at no cost to the school district by RadioOne, which is only to happy to have a captive audience of young consumers.

Steven Shulman, who founded BusRadio with Michael Yanoff, said the company provided an “age-appropriate” alternative to local FM radio stations, with songs and advertising screened by an advisory committee of school administrators and psychiatrists.
In contrast, he said, his son once came home asking what Viagra was after hearing a commercial on the bus coming home from summer camp in Mashpee, Mass. BusRadio develops playlists from a library of 1,000 pop songs and will either edit out questionable content and lyrics or refrain from playing a song altogether. “It’s tough to find clean rap music, but we do,” Mr. Shulman said.
Recent advertisers on BusRadio include Answers.com, the Cartoon Network, Buena Vista Home Entertainment and the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. The company does not accept advertising for candy or soda, or for toys that Mr. Shulman considers inappropriate, like video games with violent content, and it prefers advertisements that have a message. “We don’t want them to say, ‘Go out and buy $200 sneakers,’ ” Mr. Shulman said. “We want them to say, ‘Go and exercise, and use this gear if you want.’ ”

I appreciate this sensitivity (which is, I am sure, a commercial necessity), but do we really need to fill kids’ heads with mass media to and from school? Isn’t this time for social interaction and looking out the window and quiet reflection? Aren’t we teaching them that they should expect every minute of every day to be hooked into some form of media instead of learning how to make conversation and use their imagination? And do we really need to bombard them with more exhortations to buy more things?

The Ultimate Relationship Test: Renting a DVD

Posted on April 8, 2008 at 10:31 am

Traveling together. Buying a house. Handling finances. Dealing with in-laws. Raising children. Sex. These are often listed as the primary argument topics for couples — and the arguments most revelatory of underlying relationship issues and problems. It’s time to add debates about DVD rentals to the list, both discussions during the actual rental experience and conversations afterward about the merits of the item selected. A perceptive article in The Movie Blog provides some wise advice, clearly based on experience, to help couples through this minefield. Now, perhaps they can come up with a solution to the “when do you ask for directions” conundrum.
Thanks to Cinematical for bringing my attention to this piece.

Parents fret over appropriateness of movies for kids (Appleton Post-Crescent)

Posted on March 31, 2008 at 12:59 pm

Cheryl Sherry’s column in the Appleton Post-Crescent discusses a new survey showing that PG movies with strong language sell fewer tickets than those with other kinds of parental concerns like violence or sex.

“The reality is that profanity, within PG, is the big demarcation between box office winner and box office loser,” research and marketing director Dan O’Toole told attendees at ShoWest, a conference where studios unveil upcoming movie lineups. “Parents are choosing PG films for their kids that have very, very low levels of profanity. We’re talking one-third the level of the average PG film,” he said.

Sherry called me for comment, and her column describes my background and approach and some of my thoughts on the rating system:

Minow, who has testified before the Federal Trade Commission on the MPAA’s rating system, said “overwhelmingly its biggest failing is they will give material a pass in a comedy they’d give a much higher rating to in a drama. So you have these movies like the Austin Powers movies getting a PG-13 rating, which have really, really raunchy humor. … Just because the MPAA is ratcheting down it’s system, doesn’t mean I have to follow suit.”

PG-13 has become the no-man’s land of the rating system, added. “Many parents will shrug their shoulders and say, my 10-year-old is bright and can handle a PG-13. … But you do not know what you are getting. There can be PG-13s that are almost PG and there can be PG-13s that should be Rs.”

Miss Bimbo: As Bad as it Sounds and Then Some

Posted on March 30, 2008 at 8:00 am

“Miss Bimbo” is an online site popular with little girls in England, France, and Japan that bills itself as the “first virtual fashion game.” It encourages them to “Become the most famous and beautiful bimbo in the world.” They can accomplish this by having their personal “bimbo” diet (until recent protests, this included the “purchase” of diet pills) and get cosmetic surgery or a wealthy boyfriend. This game makes Barbie and the Bratz look like Hillary Clinton. Parents should exercise caution to make sure that Webkins-savvy children do not wander over into this site.

Many thanks to the Jezebel site for bringing this to my attention.