Autism & Gaming Disorder: What Professionals Should Know
Duration: 1.5 - 3 hours
Join us to discover why people with autism are more at risk of gaming addiction and other complications. At the end of the webinar you will have practical intervention techniques, strategies and ideas that can be put to immediate use in a clinical, academic or home setting.
Who is this webinar for?
This webinar is for school counselors, teachers, medical professionals, social workers and others working with people on the autistic spectrum who are trying to understand and manage their gaming habits.
Autism and gaming – the benefits and risks
Research indicates that children with autism spend more hours each day playing video games and have significantly higher scores on a measure of addictive use than their typically developing siblings. Gaming can be a positive source of engagement, learning and socialization for people who are autistic. However, video games can also become such a focus that they refuse to do any other activity. This webinar works on the premise that gaming can have benefits and risks for people with autism, depending on how it’s managed, and that gaming itself is not the problem.
What you will learn in this webinar
- Find out about the mechanics of gaming and gaming addiction.
- Gain insights into the particular variables that people with autism have that impacts the likelihood of them being drawn into gaming.
- Understand how social isolation and other challenges may make autistic people gravitate towards gaming.
- Discover ways to manage anger, aggression, and oppositional behavior before they occur.
- Find healthy, co-operative, problem-solving methods for clients or students.
- Look at other activities for people who have autism to help them recognize the need for balance in their life.
- Examine the whole spectrum of autism behaviors that might be indicative of why they game more – sensory, social, intellectual stimulation, high-interest areas etc.
Presenters:
Dr Jay Berk, Clinical Director
Jay H. Berk, PhD, is a licensed psychologist, coach, author, speaker and expert with over 30 years’ experience of working with children, adolescents and families.
Dr Berk has provided training and workshops throughout the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and Bosnia to schools, agencies, mental health therapists, speech therapists, occupational therapists and a variety of parent groups. He has also worked as a special consultant to the Screen Actors Guild in New York City and for UNICEF.
Dr Berk is author of “Parent’s Quick Guide to Electronic Addiction” and “Codeswitching: Social Skills in the Screen-Age”. Both publications are available on Amazon.
For more information about Dr Berk, visit his website.
Cam Adair – Co-Founder, INTENTA
Cam Adair is founder of Game Quitters, the world’s largest support community for video game addiction, serving members in 95 countries.
Named one of Canada’s top 150 leaders in mental health, his work has been published in Psychiatry Research and featured in two TEDx talks, Forbes, BBC, the New York Times, NPR, CNN, and ABC 20/20, among others. He’s an internationally-recognized speaker, entrepreneur, and YouTuber with over 2 million views. Born in Canada, Cam currently splits time between the US and Asia.
In 2020, Cam launched the internationally-accredited INTENTA Gaming Disorder Clinical Training.
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