"An innovative online community for people dealing with Asperger's Syndrome and Autism.".
"one day, I was speaking with John Ratey at Harvard, the author of "A User's Guide to the Brain" and "Driven to Distraction." He is very familiar with Braintalk, and has always been interested in ways to give patients the ability to help themselves. We started talking about people dealing with Autism and Asperger's Syndrome. How many of them are very high functioning and computer literate, how they have embraced online communities as a way to communicate. How they have such difficulties communicating in the "real world," and how they find the computer to be a very liberating tool. How they have problems dealing with physical environments in the real world, and how they often have a strong desire to modify their physical environment to better help themselves deal with social interactions. I started rambling about Second Life. About how it might be the "next big thing" in online virtual worlds. And I said something like...
"wouldn't it be neat to create a space in Second Life exclusive to people dealing with Autism and Asperger's Syndrome...you could give them a private space and the tools to modify that part of the world...and you could work with them to allow these people to create their OWN customized environment. A virtual world essentially made BY them...FOR them. A place where they would be with other people dealing with very similar issues. And just see what they come up with to help each other?"
He looked at me very quietly and smiled and said something to the effect of "nobody has ever done anything like that. It could be really amazing." We started talking about other things, but my mind kept coming back to this idea. And I thought "well, I think I need to really explore this crazy idea." So here we are. BrainTalk Communities Inc. is funding this project as part of it's core mission to explore online communities that help neurology patients and caregivers, and we have purchased a private island in Second Life. We will work with people to help them use it as a totally new way to interact socially with each other.
Mind you, I have no idea if this will really work...if it will really help people dealing with Autism/Asperger's...if they might find it too complicated or overwhelming...if they can really use it to help each other. But I would like to try. ".
