
Ask HN: Teaching an 8 year old with Aspergers to code? - jason_slack
I want to teach an 8 year old with Aspergers to code games. She is highly functioning and very creative and curious. I know about Scratch and Alice but I am not sure if there is a more appropriate tool.<p>My background is C&#x2F;C++, OpenGL but I don&#x27;t think this would interest any 8 year old.<p>Any advice on tools and techniques?
======
DoreenMichele
Is this something she wants? If not, you may be facing an uphill battle.

If so, help her set goals. She needs a project to work on. Let it be interest
led. Girls often have different gaming interests from boys. Respecting that
fact will help you get traction.

I am female. I like match 3 games and city building games. But I was a
military wife and a history major. I hate how a lot of city building games
have military bases and bizarre disasters (like alien invasions) but war has
no real world impact on the economy.

My sons have introduced me to a number of 4x games, like Master of Magic, by
telling me "It's like SimCity" and helping me play it with an emphasis on
civilization building, minimizing the pain of dealing with combat and strategy
for me. Way down my list of things I would like to do is make a city building
game I would like, one that incorporates war as an element but isn't focused
on winning by killing and conquering everything.

So, that's a little rambly and doesn't suggest specific tools. Commenting at
all because I did homeschool my two sons, who both likely qualify for an ASD
diagnosis.

Best.

------
kleer001
>I want to teach...

>I don't think this would interest any 8 year old...

Sounds like you're filling you back pocket with goodies to share... But don't
hold back, don't limit the selection only to what you think a kid would like.
Why?

Since I was 5 I remember being ravenous for all the complexity and hidden
knowledge of the adult world. Cursive, how driving works, cursing (lol)...
This was before the wide adoption of in-home personal computers, but I suspect
if I had been born 20 years later I would have gobbled up any and all
technical data on how those things worked.

I say don't hold back. Heck, even offer up some super technical obscurities
like Fortran or assembly or MIDI. The more esoteric the better. Be the
bottomless cornucopia.

~~~
jason_slack
What I meant was c/C++ and OpenGL are not of interest to a kid. I need to use
something different :-)

~~~
kleer001
Is this from personal experience? Never had to deal with kids myself...

I would have expected nothing in the real of knowledge off limits to a
motivated child.

------
mindcrash
Like said earlier if she's into coding (it might not be her forte, and as she
has ASD you can forget all about it if she doesn't -- speaking out of personal
experience) No Starch [1] has some great books on teaching kids how to code.

If you want something game centric you might like "Invent Your Own Computer
Games with Python, 4th Edition" by Al Sweigart [2]

[1] [https://nostarch.com/catalog/kids](https://nostarch.com/catalog/kids)

[2]
[https://nostarch.com/inventwithpython](https://nostarch.com/inventwithpython)

------
chris11
I had a ton of fun with Lego Mindstorms when I was a kid. It's not free, but
she might enjoy it if she's interested in programming lego robots. It looks
like you might be able to use those legos with python too, but that would
probably take more work on your part to set up.

[https://sites.google.com/site/ev3python/](https://sites.google.com/site/ev3python/)

------
dylanhassinger
check out Bloxels!

[http://home.bloxelsbuilder.com/](http://home.bloxelsbuilder.com/)

~~~
jason_slack
Wow, this is awesome. Why doesn't everyone know about this? Thank you.

------
LifeQuestioner
My brother has aspergers. He loves games so I've taught him how to code unity.
He's 14 and picked it up super quick

~~~
jason_slack
That's awesome. If he releases a mobile game let me know.

