Creativity on the Spectrum: Perspectives from Tabletop Roleplaying Games
Author
Kjeldsen, Mathias Haugaard
Term
4. term
Education
Publication year
2022
Submitted on
2022-11-04
Pages
55
Abstract
An autism diagnosis is often accompanied by assumptions about the person: behavior, understanding of the world, creative thinking, and social interaction are frequently framed as areas of major deficit. This project instead highlights that people on the autism spectrum can express creativity and can develop social competencies. It examines tabletop role-playing games (tabletop RPGs), collaborative games in which players create a story together, to illustrate distributed creativity (creativity that emerges from and is shared across the group). It also looks at the groups that form around these games as social settings in which people on the spectrum may be able to engage in more complex interactions than in their everyday lives. The study is based on an autoethnographic account of the author’s own experiences with tabletop RPGs, supplemented by two interviews conducted within a participatory action research framework that involves participants in the research process. These materials are discussed alongside existing research on tabletop RPGs to explore possible ways in which such games might contribute to the creative and social development of people on the autism spectrum.
En autismediagnose ledsages ofte af mange antagelser om personen: adfærd, verdensforståelse, kreativ tænkning og socialt samspil bliver ofte set som områder med store mangler. Dette projekt fremhæver i stedet, at personer i autismespektret kan udtrykke sig kreativt og kan udvikle sociale kompetencer. Det undersøger pen-og-papir-rollespil (tabletop RPGs), samarbejdsbaserede spil hvor deltagerne sammen skaber en fortælling, for at illustrere begrebet distribueret kreativitet (kreativitet, der opstår i og deles af gruppen). Projektet ser også på de grupper, der dannes omkring sådanne spil, som sociale rammer, hvor personer i spektret kan indgå i mere komplekse sociale interaktioner, end de måske kan i hverdagen. Undersøgelsen bygger på en autoetnografisk beretning om forfatterens egne erfaringer med pen-og-papir-rollespil, suppleret af to interviews gennemført inden for en deltagerbaseret aktionsforskningsramme, hvor medvirkende inddrages i forskningsprocessen. Disse materialer diskuteres sammen med eksisterende forskning i pen-og-papir-rollespil for at belyse mulige måder, hvorpå sådanne spil kan bidrage til kreativ og social udvikling for personer i autismespektret.
[This apstract has been rewritten with the help of AI based on the project's original abstract]