Hard News: Aspie On
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It was in shops (or at least a shop) yesterday.
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It was in shops (or at least a shop) yesterday.
Thanks. Amended accordingly.
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I've also added a note to the post about my quest for some programming tutoring for my 15 yo son Leo
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We've just confirmed the third place on the panel: Edwin McRae, the storyliner who oversaw the entry of the Asperger's character Gabrielle on Shortland Street.
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The Asperger's construct is proposed for removal from the American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in edition 5 (APA DSM V), due to be published in 2013- edition 4 of the manual is what most mental health professionals in Australasia use for diagnostic criteria.
This group of people will in future come under the global heading of Autistic Spectrum Disorder- http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/Pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=97#.
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This group of people will in future come under the global heading of Autistic Spectrum Disorder-
Which seems intuitive to me. Are there any other implications of this change, Dylan?
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Just some observations for anyone teaching programming to young people.
When my 11 year old daughter needed to learn a computer language for analysing images for her science fair project, I taught her Python. You can get up and running with a basic understanding of the language in a couple of hours by tackling things in the order of:
-Data types (things you can work with): numbers, strings, files, lists
-Variables: store the stuff on the right in a container labelled with the name on the left
-Objects and methods: Hey_you.do_this(with_this)
-Decision making: Ifs and For loops
From that, and some guidance on the libraries to use, my daughter was able to write a data analysis script.
Pygame is a reasonably well regarded python library to build games from.
That said, regardless of language, the real issue is estimating the amount of effort required to develop something, and trying to break it into parts where some progress is being made.If it is an initial exposure to programming on a small scale item, I would actually suggest javascript in the web browser, because the GUI development is easy and most young people have an imbued familiarity with the way web pages work. Simple options for games are rather limited, though less so with HMTL5 to link to a rather interesting example I saw in the weekend (though doing this kind of stuff is still somewhat complicated):
Safari,Chrome,Opera, or Firefox link -
Apropos Ruby -- Russell, have you pointed him at Try Ruby! ?
(I also took the liberty of forwarding your request to the NZ Python User Group).
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Apropos Ruby -- Russell, have you pointed him at Try Ruby! ?
Just did! It's really nice. Leo's having a poke at it now.
(I also took the liberty of forwarding your request to the NZ Python User Group).
Thanks. It looks like Ben Wilson might be able to help us, but I'm quite keen to have Leo learning several days a week.
The sad thing is, I knew pretty much what he needed 18 months ago, but the education system does not provide such things.
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Hi Russell. Have you had a look at Scratch? It's been developed by MIT specifically for kids and is very visual and has an appealing entry-level approach.
It's free and has a busy online community who trade bits of programming etc back and forth. My 8 year old girl has done a bit with it (used it particularly to do small animations and dramas) but DH has done some more sophisticated gaming stuff with it, although it started to bug when he got too complex with it.
Certainly worth a look though - it may suit your son.
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Heh, actually he may also enjoy Try Haskell. Although Haskell is not for everyone...
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Hi Russell. Have you had a look at Scratch? It's been developed by MIT specifically for kids and is very visual and has an appealing entry-level approach.
By the time I was aware of it I'd decided that entry-level kids' programming environments weren't the way to go, for him at least. We tried a few things, and then realised that he was having much more fun using ActionScript and building a Flash game with Karl from CactusLab.
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Just some observations for anyone teaching programming to young people.
When my 11 year old daughter needed to learn a computer language for analysing images for her science fair project, I taught her Python.My brother-in-law (who is 15 and high-functioning autistic) seems to have got quite a bit out of two Python texts, one of which is written around learning to build computer games; I've used the other, which is slightly higher-level, to self-teach and it's been very good. They're both available free online - Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python and Think Python.
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Scratch seems very appropriate for a younger child. But I think at 15, things aimed at little kids are demeaning and toy-like. By that age you should have the intellectual horsepower and stickability to tackle "real" programming if you want to. There's a bajillion easier or more interesting pursuits out there if not.
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I wonder if the panellists are fans of the 'Big Bang Theory?
By the way the Autism NZ conference is on 10-12 September at Te Papa. One whole stream for speakers on the spectrum.
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I wonder if the panellists are fans of the 'Big Bang Theory?
I was surprised at how highly it ranked in weekly ratings when I glanced at them in the Press the other day. It obviously has wide appeal in NZ (caveats about the Nielsen system aside.)
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Howdy folks, longtime lurker!
Russell, I'm interested to know if the Ministry (MinEdu) makes the funding that would otherwise be earmarked for Leo (were he accommodated within the system) available to Leo?
I'm coming from the perspective of a parent who loves a little person on the spectrum (and a human rights enthusiast).
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I'm coming from the perspective of a parent who loves a little person on the spectrum (and a human rights enthusiast).
School vouchers as a human right ... don't talk to Roger Douglas.
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Heh, well I tried many months ago to engage said gentleman round 'Disability Issues' as Act's spokesperson on such....he's yet to get back to me.
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Berry Binnie - in my family the young aspie has been catered for by very local school & health/family support - are you within ANZ?
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Regarding teaching programing I recently herd an interview with the authers of a book to teach programming, the interview is at http://www.hanselminutes.com/default.aspx?showID=212
and the book is at http://www.manning.com/sande/ it uses python as the learning lanaguage. It may be worth looking at as a starting point or a text book to work through.Hello World!
Computer Programming for Kids and Other Beginners
Warren D. Sande and Carter Sande
ISBN: 1933988495The interviewer says don't be put off by the word kid in the title.
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Not really programming per se, but in terms of game development, perhaps Leo might like to try Blender (http://www.blender.org/) an open source 3D animation and game development suite.
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Islander-
We pulled one out of the lucky bag; our small is currently present, participating and ORRS funded. I could write a book about how that came to pass.
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Okay, I'm going to spend the rest of the day trying to wrap my head around the notion that Roger Douglas is a spokesperson for disability issues.
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We pulled one out of the lucky bag; our small is currently present, participating and ORRS funded. I could write a book about how that came to pass.
I'd read it. Nice to hear from you, btw. Another one takes the plunge!
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