Making "Safe": Community-Centered Practices in a Virtual World Dedicated to Children with Autism

The use of online games and virtual worlds is becoming increasingly prominent, particularly in children and young adults. Parents have concerns about risks their children might encounter in these online spaces. Parents dynamically manage the boundaries between safe and unsafe spaces online through both explicit and implicit means. In this work, we use empirical data gathered from a digital ethnog-raphy of a Minecraft server, Autcraft, to explore how par-ents of children with autism continually create a "safe" virtual world through both implicit and explicit means. In par-ticular, we demonstrate how their actions in these spaces define and produce "safety," shedding light on our theoreti-cal understanding of child safety in online spaces.

[1]  Pamela J. Wolfberg,et al.  Including Children with Autism in Social and Imaginary Play with Typical Peers: Integrated Play Groups Model , 2012 .

[2]  J. Wolak,et al.  Youth Internet users at risk for the most serious online sexual solicitations. , 2007, American journal of preventive medicine.

[3]  Elina M. I. Koivisto,et al.  Defining grief play in MMORPGs: player and developer perceptions , 2004, ACE '04.

[4]  danah boyd,et al.  Connected and concerned: Variation in parents' online safety concerns , 2013 .

[5]  Paul Dourish,et al.  Situated practices of looking: visual practice in an online world , 2008, CSCW.

[6]  Lois Ann Scheidt,et al.  It’s Complicated: The Social Lives of Networked Teens , 2015, New Media Soc..

[7]  Gillian R. Hayes,et al.  Disability studies as a source of critical inquiry for the field of assistive technology , 2010, ASSETS '10.

[8]  Stefano De Paoli,et al.  My Life as a Night Elf Priest. An Antropological Account of World of Warcraft. , 2010, Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).

[9]  L. Schreibman,et al.  Effects of sociodramatic play training on children with autism , 1995, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[10]  B. Nardi,et al.  Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method , 2012 .

[11]  Sean C. Duncan.  Minecraft, beyond construction and survival , 2011 .

[12]  Deborah Richards,et al.  Managing cyber-bullying in online educational virtual worlds , 2013, IE.

[13]  Alice E. Marwick,et al.  ‘It's just drama’: teen perspectives on conflict and aggression in a networked era , 2014 .

[14]  I. Altman.  Privacy Regulation: Culturally Universal or Culturally Specific? , 1977 .

[15]  S. Cortesi,et al.  Bullying in a networked era: a literature review , 2012 .

[16]  F. Mishna,et al.  Ongoing and Online: Children and youth's perceptions of cyber bullying , 2009 .

[17]  Eleanor Mattern,et al.  Developing Design Interventions for Cyberbullying: A Narrative-Based Participatory Approach. , 2014 .

[18]  L. S. Vygotskiĭ,et al.  Mind in society : the development of higher psychological processes , 1978 .

[19]  K. Sofronoff,et al.  A Randomized Controlled Trial of a Cognitive Behavioural Intervention for Anger Management in Children Diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome , 2007, Journal of autism and developmental disorders.

[20]  J. Rabe-Jabłońska,et al.  [Affective disorders in the fourth edition of the classification of mental disorders prepared by the American Psychiatric Association -- diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders]. , 1993, Psychiatria polska.

[21]  Bonnie A. Nardi,et al.  Strangers and friends: collaborative play in world of warcraft , 2006, CSCW '06.

[22]  Marek Bell,et al.  CSCW at play: 'there' as a collaborative virtual environment , 2004, CSCW.

[23]  P. Strain,et al.  ABA and the Development of Meaningful Social Relations for Young Children with Autism , 2001 .

[24]  J. Wolak,et al.  Unwanted and Wanted Exposure to Online Pornography in a National Sample of Youth Internet Users , 2007, Pediatrics.

[25]  Paul Dourish,et al.  Unpacking "privacy" for a networked world , 2003, CHI '03.

[26]  Stefan C. Dombrowski,et al.  Safeguarding young people from cyber pornography and cyber sexual predation: a major dilemma of the internet , 2007 .

[27]  Jim Everett,et al.  Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human , 2010 .

[28]  Thomas Chesney,et al.  Griefing in virtual worlds: causes, casualties and coping strategies , 2009, Inf. Syst. J..

[29]  ชวิตรา ตันติมาลา.  Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide through Qualitative Analysis , 2017 .

[30]  Justine Cassell,et al.  Playing with virtual peers: bootstrapping contingent discourse in children with autism , 2008, ICLS.

[31]  Paul Dourish,et al.  Introduction: The State of Play , 2004, Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).

[32]  Leslie Haddon,et al.  Risks and safety for children on the internet: the UK report: full findings from the EU Kids Online survey of UK 9-16 year olds and their parents , 2010 .

[33]  N. Bagatell,et al.  Orchestrating voices: autism, identity and the power of discourse , 2007 .

[34]  A. Nicolopoulou,et al.  Play, Cognitive Development, and the Social World: Piaget, Vygotsky, and Beyond , 1993 .

[35]  C. Garvey.  Some Properties of Social Play. , 1974 .

[36]  Darby Dickerson,et al.  What is Cyberbullying , 2009 .

[37]  Alice E. Marwick,et al.  The Conundrum of Visibility , 2009 .

[38]  Ana Paiva,et al.  FearNot!: providing children with strategies to cope with bullying , 2009, IDC.

[39]  J. Kras,et al.  The “Ransom Notes” Affair: When the Neurodiversity Movement Came of Age , 2009 .

[40]  Jennifer L. Cerully,et al.  Interventions to Reduce Mental Health Stigma and Discrimination: A Literature Review to Guide Evaluation of California's Mental Health Prevention and Early Intervention Initiative. , 2013, Rand health quarterly.

[41]  Herbert Roeyers,et al.  How specific are executive functioning deficits in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism? , 2004, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[42]  R. Jordan.  Social Play and Autistic Spectrum Disorders , 2003, Autism : the international journal of research and practice.

[43]  L. Haddon,et al.  Risks and safety for children on the internet: the UK report: summary of key findings , 2010 .

[44]  Jackie Marsh,et al.  young children’s play in online virtual worlds , 2010 .

[45]  Michele L. Ybarra,et al.  Examining Characteristics and Associated Distress Related to Internet Harassment: Findings From the Second Youth Internet Safety Survey , 2006, Pediatrics.

[46]  S. Livingstone,et al.  Identifying vulnerable children online and what strategies can help them , 2012 .