Working creatively with digital media has so much potential, offers endless variety and can be a great asset to art therapists working with children with neurodevelopmental disorders. When it comes to my prospective clients, they should be warned that my digital art making skills may be particularly weak. Lately I’ve been learning how to use a program to create GIFs, which I find fun, but a young person would probably disengage from the activity because it requires a lot of planning, focus, and fine motor control. On the other side of the spectrum, some kinds of digital art, like coloring and free drawing on an iPad using a touch screen is less physically and mentally demanding. I’ve also been playing a game called Redecor, which is basically a competition to win the popular vote on your paint, upholstery, flooring, countertop, and other material choices in combination, for the best design, in a given space. It’s sort of like a glorified version of the Recolor application where you tap negative spaces of a digital drawing to fill them with color. Despite Redecor’s simplicity, for some reason I find it highly engaging and I appreciate that I can experiment with design choices and color while I’m laying down on a couch. It has been satisfying to check back after voting is complete and find that a couple of my designs won!
For some children with neurodevelopmental disorders, creative online games can be highly engaging and allow for social interaction with other artists and gamers. For clients with neurodevelopmental motor disorders, activities should be within their physical limitations. In Redecor, the design challenges last for over 24 hours, which gives it a more relaxed feeling compared to games that require quick, accurate manipulations to compete. For young clients with autism who struggle with socialization and relational skills, they may have the intellectual ability to learn through practice and observing patterns. By engaging in age appropriate design games with these clients, it is possible to learn about each other's opinions about interior design choices they may find in their own home, material preferences, favorite colors, and perception of balance through design choices. Digital media may be preferred by young clients with autism who have an aversion to the textures or smells of other art media because of hyperreactivity to sensory input (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). There is such a wide spectrum of neurodevelopmental disorders and every young client will be uniquely different, so digital art and games should be chosen based on their particular strengths and interests.
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596