Second Life Accessibility

Brigadoon is no longer in existence, but individuals with autism and aspergers’ syndrome can now go to “Naughty Auties Haven.” It sounded like the site may be for adults only, so I went to take a look. It appears to be family friendly except for the store next door selling clothes and body parts to make money for the virtual space. I wouldn’t bring any kids with you, it is an area deserving its “Mature” rating.

Message from David Sparrow, creator of Naughty Auties Haven:

One of the main problems with Autism for day to day life is the communicative skills; the problem being Autistic people do not develop them usually to the same degrees normal people, facial expressions and body language might as well not be there for an autistic person as they just are not registered by the brain.

Now you are probably familiar with symbols which are all over the internet now but only really took off a few years back:etc etc msn/icq/aol/skype is full of them. Well what I found helped me over come my communicative skills were believe it or not online chat rooms, I would spend ours speaking to people online, literally soaking up what everyone was speaking about, soaking up all the little images they would make; hug signs, smiley signs, angry signs etc etc and matching them up to what they were typing about.

Subconsciously, my brain was learning from the internet chat rooms about communication, what “normal” peoples brains have the luxury of learning from Real Life interaction, but without the stresses and strains which real life interaction causes to an Autistic person.

The location on SL is Crystal Isles (165, 225, 21) For more of the story, check out:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/conditions/03/28/sl.autism.irpt/index.html?eref=rss_topstories

Sighted people in the physical world perceive hundreds of visual objects at a glance, but automatically ignore items that are not immediately important or operationally relevant or are otherwise not interesting. Similarly, a person who is blind in a virtual setting may need to establish selective perception filters to limit cognitive overload caused by overdetailed environments. There are essential operational properties of objects, but there is also a frequent abundance of decorative properties that have no operational value and can be safely ignored. We propose that virtual reality should first provide a full range of operational capability for users who are blind. Decorative aspects are secondary. It may not be essential to know that the avatar is standing in a virtual field of 4-inch-tall multicolored Portulaca flowers, the sun is shining 32.5 degrees above the horizon, and nearby avatars all look like feathered lizards–except for one who is impersonating a Texan Houston Toad. More important, what are the names of avatars surrounding the blind user? What are they chatting about? What objects can be manipulated in the vicinity, and what transactional options do they yield? “What is my location, and where are my friends?”

http://www.afb.org/afbpress/pub.asp?DocID=aw090207 

Panelists: Atsuko Watanabe and Jondan Lundquist

Here is a link to a chat transcript from a discussion in SL regarding accessibility. It is mostly about universal design, but I did find the following enlightening:

“Why is the built world of SL not more accessible, but much less so than the RL? My only interpretation is that SL is more a mirror of the real attitudes of the inhabitants than the real world. Certainly it isn’t the cost. Maybe it is a reflection of the “medical model” – that people with disabilities are broken and that they need to be fixed, and in SL, no one should have a disability because it is “Wrong” somehow. I’m not broken, I am proud of who I am.”

http://healthinfoisland.blogspot.com/2008/02/accessing-second-life-universal-design_28.html