Calling all techie guys-ideas for gifted severe autistic!

shegirl

Hi,really want some ideas for things for my son to do,buy and learn.

My 11 year old son is severely autistic but is gifted with his main ability being computers.School haven't been working with his true abilities and this is frustrating him.He uses his computers at home a lot (and has quite a few computers lol) and has used various things to create moving icons,using a programme that requires ploting on charts to create images that move etc (no idea what this was but the person who done it with him spent hours trying to figure it out,my son took one look and within ten minutes had created an amazing full moving picture with music etc) recently.He's above GCSE IT level.

I want to find something for him to learn that will also give him some kind of end result that he can see,if that makes sense.Something that has a purpose for him -'if i do this this and this I can make this and watch it/play with it' kind of thing.

Anyone have any ideas for him at all?I'm willing to try anything with him

spinybif_2

How about a Lego Mindstorm robot. Not cheap but would give hours of fun and teach programming. My girlfriends son used one for his final year university project in computing so can be as simple or advanced as you like.

http://www.active-robots.com/products/lego/mindstorms.shtml

shegirl

spinybif wrote: »

How about a Lego Mindstorm robot. Not cheap but would give hours of fun and teach programming. My girlfriends son used one for his final year university project in computing so can be as simple or advanced as you like.

http://www.active-robots.com/products/lego/mindstorms.shtml

That looks really cool!He'd love that

GeoffX

There's also the Lego Digital Designer - I'm pretty sure it's free.
http://ldd.lego.com/

If your son has any favourite PC games there may be free tools available for it that would enable him to create his own levels / missions for it.

If he'd be interested in programming then Microsoft's free Visual Studio Express is an excellent place to start. There are various languages for different platforms: I'd suggest C# for Windows.
http://www.microsoft.com/express/

pendulum

I think I'd set up one of his computers as a server on 24/7 and encourage him to try different things on it, e.g. creating and hosting websites (a nice skill to have in later life).

As his first project you could ask him to create you a website and host it on his server, with family pictures on it? Then get another member of the family who lives far away to visit it?

shegirl

GeoffX wrote: »

There's also the Lego Digital Designer - I'm pretty sure it's free.
http://ldd.lego.com/

If your son has any favourite PC games there may be free tools available for it that would enable him to create his own levels / missions for it.

If he'd be interested in programming then Microsoft's free Visual Studio Express is an excellent place to start. There are various languages for different platforms: I'd suggest C# for Windows.
http://www.microsoft.com/express/

Just picked him up from his night at the respite centre and he's on it already

BillScarab

I sin interested in film making? He could record a few clips with a camcorder and then edit them ont he computer, add music and effects etc.

That can be as simple or involved as he likes and if he uses Movie Maker it's free.

shegirl

BillScarab wrote: »

I sin interested in film making? He could record a few clips with a camcorder and then edit them ont he computer, add music and effects etc.

That can be as simple or involved as he likes and if he uses Movie Maker it's free.

He has a thing about making films of himself talking about and showing things about computers and various versions of Windows:rotfl:Bless him!

shegirl

Just wanted to thank you guys for your help He's having a great time with your suggestions

I'm soo looking forward to showing school what he's been doing at a meeting today.As he's severe autistic he goes to a school appropriate to the severity,has his own classroom,teacher and assistants and not only have they been mistreating him and not directing him (he spends most of the day wandering around as they don't get him to do anything) but they don't work with him as a gifted child.Their new goals to 'develop his IT skills' are to get him creating gift cards:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Owain_Moneysaver

Would the school let him set up a virtual learning environment or intranet using something like moodle, let him write it up and submit an article to one of the linux magazines? He could also do a screencast and youtube it, etc. The whole open source software movement is about collaborating and creating software. Is there a local linux user group he could go to, or participate in online?

shegirl

Owain_Moneysaver wrote: »

Would the school let him set up a virtual learning environment or intranet using something like moodle, let him write it up and submit an article to one of the linux magazines? He could also do a screencast and youtube it, etc. The whole open source software movement is about collaborating and creating software. Is there a local linux user group he could go to, or participate in online?

I can ask Thanks