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Hello and welcome to this week’s wholesome NONPOLITICAL video in which I talk about anything other than the literal most important topics currently being discussed elsewhere. You know what I love? Board games!
I grew up playing board games with my family, mostly the standards we all know and love, like Monopoly and Trivial Pursuit and Fireball Island. Oh, you didn’t have Fireball Island when you were a kid? I feel sorry for you because I had Fireball Island as a kid and in fact I have Fireball Island: The Curse of Vul-Kar right now as an adult because my life is dope and I do dope things.
So I like board games, and I’m also very competitive, which is why these days I mostly just play occasional co-op games with my spouse. Because I’d like to stay married.
But while I LIKE board games, there are people out there who LOVE board games: I have friends who collect board games, or have a weekly board game night, or chat on board game subreddits, stuff like that. And that’s who some new research is about: it turns out that people who are super into board games are also more likely to be autistic. Is there a joke I can make here that wouldn’t lead to a swift and well-deserved cancellation? Probably not. I’ll just say, no, this finding is not exactly groundbreaking. But the study…well, studies…are interesting!
First up we have “Game Changer: Exploring the Role of Board Games in the Lives of Autistic People,” in which British psychologists first surveyed 1,600 board game enthusiasts they found on social media and message boards. They found that while only around 1% of the general population have autism, a whopping 4.7% of respondents had an autism diagnosis, and 7% reported traits within the “Broad Autism Phenotype,” a way to distinguish subclinical autistic characteristics. The two groups combined (because there’s overlap) encompassed 10% of total respondents.
The researchers then compared that autistic 10% to the rest of the group, and found that they tended to be more likely to consider themselves hardcore about board games, more likely to enjoy co-op games, more likely to play online, more likely to prefer engine building, hand management, tile placement, set collection and dungeon crawling mechanics, and less likely to prefer social elements like storytelling.
Now, let me just pause here to point out something that popped into my head while reading this: is it possible that you could pick almost any hobby at random, like fishing or crocheting or juggling, go to an online message board for that hobby, gather a bunch of subjects, and find a higher than average number of autistic people there? I would be equally unsurprised, to be honest. I say that as someone who spent way, way too much time on message boards in the early 2000s. A lot of my friends from that time have an autism diagnosis. Many others have suspicions about their place on the ol’ spectrum.
And that idea did end up being relevant, because in a second study, these psychologists conducted in-depth interviews with thirteen autistic board game enthusiasts to tease out why they enjoy this hobby. Four themes emerged, and one of them WAS that the subjects reported enjoying the fact that they could be really, super nerdy about their passion and not feel embarrassed or get made fun of when talking to other passionate people. That’s, like, the entire POINT of specific online forums, so it makes sense that we’d probably see that point with ANY hobby.
But the other three themes are more specific to why a person with autism might enjoy board games in particular. First, they reported finding comfort in engaging with a known set of rules that don’t change unexpectedly, and that allows them to replay in order to improve their skills.
Second, they liked that board games provided a safe context for socializing, allowing them to focus on a task instead of worrying about small talk.
Finally, and most interestingly, the subjects reported that they generally really enjoyed games of social deception, like Werewolf or (to give a videogame example that you may know better) Among Us. There’s a stereotype that autistic individuals (by the way, that’s the phrase they use because surveys have shown that most autistic individuals prefer it) aren’t very good at detecting deception and bluffs or at lying. The surveys showed that many of these individuals, at least, thought they had become quite good at uncovering deception in these games, though they also said they were still pretty terrible at lying under pressure. Despite that, they still tended to enjoy these games.
Finally, the researchers gathered 28 autistic adults who weren’t into board games, and had them play some before interviewing them about their experience. This was the main thrust of the study: would an afternoon of board games have any positive affect? The researchers found that it did, with subjects reporting that, yep, they really liked having the game there as a social lubricant, and that while they could be challenging, they liked the ability to build on and demonstrate skills like “perspective-taking, bluffing, and reading other people.”
The really cool thing is that the researchers went on to apply these ideas in two separate studies, published separately: one concerning a group of autistic adolescents and the other on a group of adults with autism as well as other developmental disabilities like ADHD and Down’s syndrome. They set up weekly board game sessions for the two groups and followed them for two years, conducting in-depth interviews with both the autistic individuals and their teachers/caregivers to see if there were benefits. And there were! The kids loved the social deception games for building those skills of figuring out what other people are thinking. Their teachers were shocked at how quickly the games brought the kids together, both emotionally AND physically. They also reported that while the kids previously had a lot of trouble interacting with new people, they were excited to meet the people who came to run the board game sessions, and they welcomed new students who joined the game, befriending them quickly. They especially liked picture-based games, because even students who had trouble reading could enjoy them.
In the adult group, at first the caretakers reported fights breaking out, which I find hilarious because eventually the subjects reported feeling like they were all brothers and sisters playing together around one table as a family. Yep! That sounds like my house growing up.
The adult group had individuals with more profound disabilities, like cerebral palsy, which made some of the games more physically and mentally difficult for some subjects. But both subjects and staff reported that they came together to help each other out, by reminding them of rules or helping figure out how to hold the cards. The staff then reported that following the games, the subjects showed an obvious improvement in their independence.
“As one noted, “To other people, it might sound a bit silly that just a game has done that, but it has. It’s made them think about their own decisions, and I think, you know, because you’ve said ‘no that’s your choice, you’ve got to make that choice’ I think they’ve thought, ‘Right, well I can do that in other stuff as well.’”
The researchers note that this is just a preliminary study but it shows tremendous promise for an easy, low-cost intervention that could benefit autistic people in many important ways.
I don’t have autism, as far as I know, but I found it funny how much I agreed with the autistic board game enthusiasts on why they enjoy board games. And it turns out, that’s not a coincidence: in that first survey, the only other mental condition that was significantly above the worldwide average was anxiety, which I of course have in SPADES. One big reason I’m always excited when a board game comes out at a party is because, yeah, it makes socializing so much easier. Of course, another reason I get excited is because I’m extraordinarily competitive, which is why these days my friends usually bring out the cooperative games when I’m there. Because we want to stay friends.
But I’m interested to know what you think! Do you have autism or anxiety? Do you like board games? And most importantly, what’s your favorite co-op game, because my husband is sick of playing Codenames and Pandemic. Please and thank you.
