Video game builds empathy for neurodivergent experience

A neurodivergent researcher has designed a video game that shows how difficult and overstimulating workplaces and classrooms can be for those whose brains are wired differently.

Life Resounding asks players to complete day-to-day challenges in a classroom or open-plan office while the environment they are in overstimulates them.

The aim of the game is to develop social empathy among people in schools and the workplace so they can understand and want to make changes to accommodate everyone, says developer Susannah Emery.

“When you think about how neurodivergence is portrayed in stereotypes, it’s quite often an external perspective: ‘How is this person different? Or what do they do that’s weird or odd?’,” Dr Emery told AAP.

“What we wanted to do was look at the internal perspective. So, how does it feel for us to be just existing in this world?”

Dr Emery, who is a lecturer in game design and digital media at the University of South Australia, says her own experience left her wanting to build an understanding of the challenges neurodivergent people face.

“I wasn’t diagnosed until I was an adult, so I struggled all my life but I didn’t really know why,” she said.

“I just thought I wasn’t trying hard enough … ‘other people could do this, why can’t I?’ And I went through a lot of depression and anxiety around trying to be like everyone else.

“Getting the adult diagnosis was really, really beneficial to me because it was like, it’s not something I’m doing wrong, it’s that my brain is different.

“I need to do things in a different way. I need to accept that and do what works for my brain rather than fighting it all the time.”

The game ‘hijacks’ the player’s ability to stay focused by forcing them to gaze out the window or grow agitated when rubbish that should be in the bin keeps appearing on the floor.

“One of my favourite elements of the game is one level where … you follow these directions, but very slowly the light starts to get brighter and brighter and brighter, until you realise that you can’t see anymore, it’s really hard to navigate the space,” Dr Emery said.

“That’s kind of like how it feels to have something like sensory overload, whether it’s from light or whether it’s from sound … you get to this point where it’s just too much and you have to check out.”

Actually experiencing these challenges is more powerful than just hearing about them second-hand, she says.

Initially the game was a project for people to share with family and friends, but has since been developed as a tool for therapists and classrooms.

“It can hopefully lead to conversations about ‘how can we prevent some of these things or reduce them’ – things like overload. And can we redesign spaces and activities and conversations and interactions too?,” she said.

“If you’re in a workplace and somebody requests to not come into the office so much because there’s fluorescent light, you can go: ‘Oh yeah, I remember that level where light stimulation was too much and I couldn’t see – that would be really annoying’.”

The game promises to be a valuable tool that could be a step closer to neurotypical people “getting it”, says Sarah Langston, president of the Australian Neurodivergent Parents Association.

“Empathy is a great teacher, so I think it’s a great idea,” Ms Langston told AAP, adding she thought it was particularly crucial the game had been developed by someone who was herself neurodivergent.

“I think anything that supports the development of empathy and real connection with the neurodivergent experience is useful, because I think what we often see is a lack of people ‘getting it’. It takes it away from the abstract and into the personal.

“While it is never going to come close to what people actually experience, I think that it is a step forward.”

Katelyn Catanzariti
(Australian Associated Press)