[Music]
thank you my name is Stuart Duncan but
I’m actually probably better known
online as autism father that’s me on the
Internet
I know the resemblance is uncanny but
I’m going to talk a little bit today
about Minecraft
that’s my minecraft character but if you
don’t know the game very well don’t
worry too much about it it’s just the
medium that I used at the time to fill a
need and what I want to talk about
applies to pretty much every situation
so about four years ago I started a
minecraft server for children with
autism and their families and I called
it at craft and since then we’ve been in
the news all around the world on
television and radio and magazines
BuzzFeed called us one of the best
places on the internet we’re also the
subject of an award-winning research
paper called appropriating minecraft as
an assistive technology for youth with
autism it’s a bit of a mouthful but you
get the idea I think so I want to talk a
little bit about that research paper and
what it’s about but first I have to give
you a little bit of history on how the
server came to be back in 2013 everybody
was playing Minecraft kids and adults
alike with and without autism of course
but it was the big thing but I saw
parents on social media reaching out to
other parents asking if their autistic
children could play together and the
reason is that when they tried to play
on public servers they kept running into
bullies and trolls when you have autism
you behave a little differently
sometimes sometimes a lot differently
and we all know that a little bit of
difference is all you really need for a
bully to make you their next target so
these terrible terrible people online
they would destroy everything that they
tried to make they would steal all their
stuff and they would kill them over and
over again making the game virtually
unplayable but the worst part the part
that really hurt the most was what these
bullies would say to these kids they’d
call them rejects and defects and
retards and they would tell these kids
some as young as 6 years old that
society doesn’t want them and their own
parents never wanted a broken child so
they should just kill themselves
and of course these kids you’d
understand they would sign off from
these servers angry and hurt they would
break their keyboards they quite
literally hate themselves and their
parents felt powerless to do anything so
I decided I had to try and help I have
autism
my oldest son has autism and both my
kids and I love Minecraft so I have to
do something so I got myself a minecraft
server and I spent some time built a
little village with some roads and a big
welcome sign and this guy and a lodge up
on a mountaintop tried to make it
inviting thought people would like it
the idea was pretty simple I had a
whitelist so the only people that I
approved could join and I would just
monitor the server as much as I could
just to make sure that nothing went
wrong now was it that was the whole
promise just to keep the kids safe so
that they could play when it was done I
went to Facebook and posted pretty
simple message just on my friends list
not publicly I just wanted to see if
there was actually any interest in this
and if it really could help turns out
that I greatly underestimated just how
much this was needed because within 48
hours I got 750 emails I don’t have that
many Facebook friends within 8 days I
had to upgrade the hosting package 8
times from the bottom package the most
expensive package they had and now
almost four years later I have eight
thousand names on the whitelist from all
around the world it’s pretty crazy but
the reason I’m up here today to talk to
you isn’t just because I gave kids a
safe place to play it’s what happened
while they played I started hearing from
parents who said that their children
were learning how to read and write from
playing on the server at first they
spelled things the way they sound like
most kids do but because they were part
of a community they saw other people
spelling the same words properly and
they just picked it up I started hearing
from parents who said that their
nonverbal children were starting to
speak they only talked about Minecraft
but they were talking some kids were
making friends at school for the first
time ever some were starting to share
and even give things to other people was
amazing and that every single parent
came to me instead it was because of our
craft is because what are you doing
but why though how could all of this be
just from a video game server
well that goes back to that research
paper that I was talking about in it she
covers some of the guidelines that I use
when I created the server guidelines
that I think help encourage people to be
their very best I hope for example
communication that can be tough for kids
with autism get tough for grownups
without autism but I think that kids
should not be punished they should be
talked to you nine times out of ten when
the kids on the server act out it’s
because of something else has happened
in the day at school or at home maybe a
pet died sometimes it’s just a simple
miscommunication between two children
they don’t tell the other person what
they’re about to do and so we just offer
to help we always tell the children on
the server that we’re not mad and
they’re not in trouble we only want to
help and it shows that not only do we
care but we respect them enough to
listen to their point of view respect
goes a long way plus it shows them that
they have everything they need to be
able to resolve these problems on their
own in the future and maybe even avoid
them because you know communication on
most servers as video games our children
are rewarded well players are rewarded
for how well they do in a competition
right the better you do the better
reward you get that sort of thing can be
automated the server does the work the
code is there on our craft we don’t do
that we have things like Player of the
Week and CBA’s which is copying awesome
we award players ranks on the servers
based on the attributes that they
exhibit such as the buddy ranked for
people that are friendly towards others
and junior helper for people that are
helpful towards others we have senior
helper for get parent for the adults but
they’re exactly they’re obvious right
like people know what to expect and how
to earn these things because of how
they’re named as soon as the somebody
signs on to the server they know that
they’re going to be rewarded for who
they are not what they can do our top
award the autism father sword which is
named after me because I’m the founder
is a very powerful sword that you can’t
get in the game any other way than to
show that you completely put the
community above yourself and that
compassion and kindness is at the core
of who you are we’ve given away quite a
few of those swords actually I figure if
we’re going to watch the server to make
sure nothing bad happens we should also
watch for the good things that happen
and reward
for them we’re always trying to show all
the players that everybody is considered
to be equal even me but we know that we
can’t treat people equally to do that
some of the players get angry very
easily some of them have additional
struggles on top of autism such as OCD
or Tourette’s so I have this knack of
remembering all of the players I
remember their first day and the
conversations we’ve had things we talked
about and that they’ve built and so when
somebody comes to me with a problem I
handled that situation differently than
I would with any other player based on
what I know about them for the other
admins and helpers we document
everything so that whether it’s good or
bad or a concerning conversation it’s
there so everybody is aware I want to
give you one example this one player he
was with us for a little while but at
some point he started spamming dashes in
the chat like a big long line of dashes
all the way across the screen and a
little while later he’d do it again and
so the other players asked him not to do
that he’d say ok and then he’d do it
again so it started to frustrate the
other players they asked me to mute him
or to punish him for breaking the rules
but I knew there had to be something
more to it so I went to his aunt who’s
the contact that I have for him and she
explained that he had gone blind in one
eye and was losing his vision in the
other so what he was doing was splitting
up the chat into easier to see blocks of
text which is pretty smart so that very
same night I talked to a friend of mine
who writes code and we created a brand
new plugin for the server that makes it
so that any player on the server
including him of course could just enter
a command and instantly have every
single line separated by dashes
plus they can make it faster ixas or
blank lines or anything they will they
want whatever works best for them we
even went a little bit extra and made it
so that it highlights your name so that
it’s easier to see if somebody mentions
you it’s just one example of how doing a
little bit extra small modification
still helps everybody be on equal
footing even though you did a little
extra just for that one player the big
one is to be not afraid the children on
my server are not afraid they are free
to just be themselves and it’s because
we support and encourage and celebrate
each other we all know what it feels
like to be the outcast and to be hated
simply for existing and so when we’re
together on
server we’re not afraid anymore for the
first two years or so on the server I
talked to two children per week on
average that were suicidal but they came
to me because I’m the one that made them
feel safe they felt like I was the only
person in the world they could talk to
so I guess my message is whether you
have a charity or some other
organization or your teacher or a
therapist or your parent who’s just
doing your very best or you’re an
autistic like I am no matter who you are
you absolutely must help these children
strip away those fears before you do
anything else because anything else is
going to feel forced unless they’re not
afraid it’s why positive reinforcement
will always do better than any form of
punishment they want to learn when they
feel safe and happy
it just happens naturally they don’t
even try to learn so I guess my one the
one thing that I hope you could take
away from my time here these are words
from the kids on the server to describe
the server the one thing I would hope
that you could take away is that no
matter what somebody else is going
through in life right now whether
they’re being bullied at school or at
home if they’re questioning their
sexuality or even their gender which
happens a lot in the autism community if
they’re feeling alone or even suicidal
you have to live your life in such a way
that that person feels like they can
come to you and tell you they have to
feel perfectly safe in talking to you
about it if you want to see a group of
autistic children kids whose society
wrongly thinks are supposed to be
antisocial and lacking in empathy you
want to see them come together and build
the most compassionate and friendly and
generous community you’ve ever seen the
kind of place that people were right
about as one of the best places on the
internet they’ll do that I’ve seen it
I’m there every day but they have some
huge obstacles that they have to
overcome to do that and it would be
really helpful to have somebody there
who could help to show them that the
only thing they really have to fear is
self-doubt so I guess I’m asking you to
please be that person for them because
to them those kids it means everything
thank you very much
[Applause]
[Music]
you
[Music]
thank you my name is Stuart Duncan but
I’m actually probably better known
online as autism father that’s me on the
Internet
I know the resemblance is uncanny but
I’m going to talk a little bit today
about Minecraft
that’s my minecraft character but if you
don’t know the game very well don’t
worry too much about it it’s just the
medium that I used at the time to fill a
need and what I want to talk about
applies to pretty much every situation
so about four years ago I started a
minecraft server for children with
autism and their families and I called
it at craft and since then we’ve been in
the news all around the world on
television and radio and magazines
BuzzFeed called us one of the best
places on the internet we’re also the
subject of an award-winning research
paper called appropriating minecraft as
an assistive technology for youth with
autism it’s a bit of a mouthful but you
get the idea I think so I want to talk a
little bit about that research paper and
what it’s about but first I have to give
you a little bit of history on how the
server came to be back in 2013 everybody
was playing Minecraft kids and adults
alike with and without autism of course
but it was the big thing but I saw
parents on social media reaching out to
other parents asking if their autistic
children could play together and the
reason is that when they tried to play
on public servers they kept running into
bullies and trolls when you have autism
you behave a little differently
sometimes sometimes a lot differently
and we all know that a little bit of
difference is all you really need for a
bully to make you their next target so
these terrible terrible people online
they would destroy everything that they
tried to make they would steal all their
stuff and they would kill them over and
over again making the game virtually
unplayable but the worst part the part
that really hurt the most was what these
bullies would say to these kids they’d
call them rejects and defects and
retards and they would tell these kids
some as young as 6 years old that
society doesn’t want them and their own
parents never wanted a broken child so
they should just kill themselves
and of course these kids you’d
understand they would sign off from
these servers angry and hurt they would
break their keyboards they quite
literally hate themselves and their
parents felt powerless to do anything so
I decided I had to try and help I have
autism
my oldest son has autism and both my
kids and I love Minecraft so I have to
do something so I got myself a minecraft
server and I spent some time built a
little village with some roads and a big
welcome sign and this guy and a lodge up
on a mountaintop tried to make it
inviting thought people would like it
the idea was pretty simple I had a
whitelist so the only people that I
approved could join and I would just
monitor the server as much as I could
just to make sure that nothing went
wrong now was it that was the whole
promise just to keep the kids safe so
that they could play when it was done I
went to Facebook and posted pretty
simple message just on my friends list
not publicly I just wanted to see if
there was actually any interest in this
and if it really could help turns out
that I greatly underestimated just how
much this was needed because within 48
hours I got 750 emails I don’t have that
many Facebook friends within 8 days I
had to upgrade the hosting package 8
times from the bottom package the most
expensive package they had and now
almost four years later I have eight
thousand names on the whitelist from all
around the world it’s pretty crazy but
the reason I’m up here today to talk to
you isn’t just because I gave kids a
safe place to play it’s what happened
while they played I started hearing from
parents who said that their children
were learning how to read and write from
playing on the server at first they
spelled things the way they sound like
most kids do but because they were part
of a community they saw other people
spelling the same words properly and
they just picked it up I started hearing
from parents who said that their
nonverbal children were starting to
speak they only talked about Minecraft
but they were talking some kids were
making friends at school for the first
time ever some were starting to share
and even give things to other people was
amazing and that every single parent
came to me instead it was because of our
craft is because what are you doing
but why though how could all of this be
just from a video game server
well that goes back to that research
paper that I was talking about in it she
covers some of the guidelines that I use
when I created the server guidelines
that I think help encourage people to be
their very best I hope for example
communication that can be tough for kids
with autism get tough for grownups
without autism but I think that kids
should not be punished they should be
talked to you nine times out of ten when
the kids on the server act out it’s
because of something else has happened
in the day at school or at home maybe a
pet died sometimes it’s just a simple
miscommunication between two children
they don’t tell the other person what
they’re about to do and so we just offer
to help we always tell the children on
the server that we’re not mad and
they’re not in trouble we only want to
help and it shows that not only do we
care but we respect them enough to
listen to their point of view respect
goes a long way plus it shows them that
they have everything they need to be
able to resolve these problems on their
own in the future and maybe even avoid
them because you know communication on
most servers as video games our children
are rewarded well players are rewarded
for how well they do in a competition
right the better you do the better
reward you get that sort of thing can be
automated the server does the work the
code is there on our craft we don’t do
that we have things like Player of the
Week and CBA’s which is copying awesome
we award players ranks on the servers
based on the attributes that they
exhibit such as the buddy ranked for
people that are friendly towards others
and junior helper for people that are
helpful towards others we have senior
helper for get parent for the adults but
they’re exactly they’re obvious right
like people know what to expect and how
to earn these things because of how
they’re named as soon as the somebody
signs on to the server they know that
they’re going to be rewarded for who
they are not what they can do our top
award the autism father sword which is
named after me because I’m the founder
is a very powerful sword that you can’t
get in the game any other way than to
show that you completely put the
community above yourself and that
compassion and kindness is at the core
of who you are we’ve given away quite a
few of those swords actually I figure if
we’re going to watch the server to make
sure nothing bad happens we should also
watch for the good things that happen
and reward
for them we’re always trying to show all
the players that everybody is considered
to be equal even me but we know that we
can’t treat people equally to do that
some of the players get angry very
easily some of them have additional
struggles on top of autism such as OCD
or Tourette’s so I have this knack of
remembering all of the players I
remember their first day and the
conversations we’ve had things we talked
about and that they’ve built and so when
somebody comes to me with a problem I
handled that situation differently than
I would with any other player based on
what I know about them for the other
admins and helpers we document
everything so that whether it’s good or
bad or a concerning conversation it’s
there so everybody is aware I want to
give you one example this one player he
was with us for a little while but at
some point he started spamming dashes in
the chat like a big long line of dashes
all the way across the screen and a
little while later he’d do it again and
so the other players asked him not to do
that he’d say ok and then he’d do it
again so it started to frustrate the
other players they asked me to mute him
or to punish him for breaking the rules
but I knew there had to be something
more to it so I went to his aunt who’s
the contact that I have for him and she
explained that he had gone blind in one
eye and was losing his vision in the
other so what he was doing was splitting
up the chat into easier to see blocks of
text which is pretty smart so that very
same night I talked to a friend of mine
who writes code and we created a brand
new plugin for the server that makes it
so that any player on the server
including him of course could just enter
a command and instantly have every
single line separated by dashes
plus they can make it faster ixas or
blank lines or anything they will they
want whatever works best for them we
even went a little bit extra and made it
so that it highlights your name so that
it’s easier to see if somebody mentions
you it’s just one example of how doing a
little bit extra small modification
still helps everybody be on equal
footing even though you did a little
extra just for that one player the big
one is to be not afraid the children on
my server are not afraid they are free
to just be themselves and it’s because
we support and encourage and celebrate
each other we all know what it feels
like to be the outcast and to be hated
simply for existing and so when we’re
together on
server we’re not afraid anymore for the
first two years or so on the server I
talked to two children per week on
average that were suicidal but they came
to me because I’m the one that made them
feel safe they felt like I was the only
person in the world they could talk to
so I guess my message is whether you
have a charity or some other
organization or your teacher or a
therapist or your parent who’s just
doing your very best or you’re an
autistic like I am no matter who you are
you absolutely must help these children
strip away those fears before you do
anything else because anything else is
going to feel forced unless they’re not
afraid it’s why positive reinforcement
will always do better than any form of
punishment they want to learn when they
feel safe and happy
it just happens naturally they don’t
even try to learn so I guess my one the
one thing that I hope you could take
away from my time here these are words
from the kids on the server to describe
the server the one thing I would hope
that you could take away is that no
matter what somebody else is going
through in life right now whether
they’re being bullied at school or at
home if they’re questioning their
sexuality or even their gender which
happens a lot in the autism community if
they’re feeling alone or even suicidal
you have to live your life in such a way
that that person feels like they can
come to you and tell you they have to
feel perfectly safe in talking to you
about it if you want to see a group of
autistic children kids whose society
wrongly thinks are supposed to be
antisocial and lacking in empathy you
want to see them come together and build
the most compassionate and friendly and
generous community you’ve ever seen the
kind of place that people were right
about as one of the best places on the
internet they’ll do that I’ve seen it
I’m there every day but they have some
huge obstacles that they have to
overcome to do that and it would be
really helpful to have somebody there
who could help to show them that the
only thing they really have to fear is
self-doubt so I guess I’m asking you to
please be that person for them because
to them those kids it means everything
thank you very much
[Applause]
[Music]
you
[Music]
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