Teaching esports to young students with autism

Abstract

Esports is on the rise as a leisure activity and also as a pedagogical activity. In this paper, we explore how Danish teachers within special needs education experience the pedagogical possibilities and challenges related to the educational use of esports activities. More specically, we interviewed teachers from four dierent public institutions and a teacher from a commercial esports provider that oers specially organized education aimed at young people (16-25 years old) diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. The results indicate that teachers generally have positive experiences with esports activities using Counter-Strike: Global Oensive (CS:GO) in relation to increasing students' well-being and social relations. However, there are also clear dierences in the teachers' game literacy, as well as how they facilitate game activities through their own teaching or by visits to an external esports provider. The ndings suggest that esports activities can be used as a valuable teaching resource, but that this requires expertise, ownership, and awareness among teachers of the educational possibilities and challenges. CCS CONCEPTS• Social and professional topics ! User characteristics; People with disabilities; User characteristics; People with disabilities; • Applied computing ! Law, social and behavioral sciences; Psychology; • Human-centered computing ! Collaborative and social computing; Empirical studies in collaborative and social computing.