Ronald Hünneman. Self City

Not by thought, but by phone

According to the theory of the Dialogical Self, a self consists of a number of dialogical positions. Which of these positions is active depends on the social situation. The dialogical position which is active during a meeting will differ from the dialogical position employed when playing poker, or being a father. Due to these different positions people in general exhibit flexible and adequate social behaviour.
In the case of children with an autistic spectrum disorder matters are not that easy. Their social behaviour is often inflexible, inadequate and clumsy. According to the thesis of position poverty this is explained by the fact that they do not possess enough dialogical positions to cope with the great diversity of social situations. In more technical terms, their position repertoire is not rich enough. This might be a consequence of their disorder or a cause of it, but most of the time it probably is both. Project Self City aims at alleviating this deficiency. Can we provide children with a position poverty with a more flexible behavioural repertoire?
In the Netherlands children or adults with an autistic spectrum disorder are sometimes appointed a private 24/7 coach. This coach has a mobile phone on which she or he can be reached 24 hours a day. Whenever the pupil encounters social circumstances too difficult to handle, the pupil can call the coach and ask for advice. For example, suppose a pupil has taken home a girl whom he wants to kiss. Characteristically, this is a horrifyingly complex situation for someone who finds it difficult to read the mind of another. When the pupil feels the stress of the situation, he withdraws and calls his coach for advice. (Which was, when I was listening in on such a 24/7 coach: “You are not able to sense whether she wants to kiss you or not, so you will just have to ask.”)
This practice successfully helps children and young adults to cope with the social complexities of their family, school, peer group or work. However this is an expensive remedy. Can we therefore come up with a cheaper, but equally effective alternative, an alternative that would be readily available and could also be employed by people who are not that severally handicapped?
How many years is a pupil in need of a 24/7 coach? Normally, after numerous interactions, a pupil will develop a dialogical position in his external self representing his coach. With this new dialogical position the pupil will be able to anticipate the advice given by the coach. Later, he will even be able to advice himself in absence of the coach, but, and this is a big but, if this is the case with a 24/7 coach and her pupil, the pupil will in all probability not suffer from an autistic spectrum disorder. Of course, in the case of less severe disorders such a representation in the external self might take place, especially if the interactions between coach and pupil are intense and numerous. Alas, less severely handicapped people are not often appointed a 24/7 coach.
Because intense training by a coach is impossible to achieve in real life, we have designed the (serious) computer game Self City. In this game the player has to solve all sorts of social puzzles in order to obtain virtual and real life rewards. For example, the player has to cope with lying, false accusation, and broken promises. In real life these scenario’s pose insurmountable problems for children with an autistic spectrum disorder. They develop rigid strategies to deal with these sorts of situations. During the game their strategies are analysed, and a coach (represented by a creature which appeals to the player) is programmed to give supplementary advice. Please note that this advice does not necessarily have to be moral. The coach is programmed to occupy a dialogical position that enriches the behavioural repertoire of the player, whether moral or not.
The transfer to real life of the enriched behavioural repertoire is a problem in its own right. When the player develops a dialogical position representing the virtual coach, one can only hope that the player is able to employ this position in real life situations comparable to the game. But this will only be the case with less severely handicapped players. And even in that case, situations will not always be comparable.
The scenario’s of Self City are developed in close cooperation with a wide variety of students. In workshops students devise and enact social situations they find difficult to manage. These situations are recorded and converted into scenario’s for the computer game. One of the astonishing finds during these workshops, is the persistence with which socially handicapped children stick to their (initial) behavioural patterns. It takes intense coaching to get them out of the rut. This makes us even less sure whether they could ever cope with complex social situations without a coach.
In a real life situations a pupil doesn’t need to develop a rich and colourful representation of his 24/7 coach. A bleak representation which is triggered in the appropriate circumstances will suffice. “Nice person who gives good advice over her mobile phone in frightening situations,” might do just fine. This representation does not trigger a rich array of expectations, but it gives the pupil a route to behavioural alternatives, not by thought, but by phone.
The Self City method employs a strategy inspired on this practice. During the game the player initially receives advice on the screen from his virtual coach. However, when the game progresses the coach is gradually withdrawn from the screen and transferred to a mobile phone. In the latter stages of the game the player has to call up the coach on the phone. In this way he learns to recognize complex social situations and take the appropriate action, without having to develop a rich representation.
During the transfer phase the player learns to take three steps in real life situations:
(1) Recognize a complex social situation as hazardous.
(2) Try to find an alternative with the help of the virtual coach on your mobile phone.
(3) If step 2 fails, call your 24/7 coach.
We expect that the first two steps will be sufficient in most situations. These two steps can be trained at length in the virtual world of Self City. Less severally handicapped players can thereby be equipped with a tool which improves their ability to cope with social complexities. When the virtual coach proves insufficient the pupil can draw on the already existing good practice and call a real 24/7 coach.

August 2008
Ronald Hünneman