November 20, 2024 5:30pm to 6:30pm
In this talk, based on her recent award-winning book, Kids Across the Spectrums: Growing Up Autistic in the Digital Age (MIT Press, 2023), Dr. Meryl Alper, Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Northeastern University, will discuss the “social” aspects of media for neurodivergent youth, and her on-going research on gaming and social media use among neurodivergent children, adolescents, and young adults.
She will speak about specific media that has a social dimension (e.g., messaging apps, TV), different kinds of social partners (e.g., peers, parents, online connections), and use examples across the age ranges (i.e., preschoolers through young adults).
Though young people on the autism spectrum are regularly characterized as having social deficits, Dr. Alper will argue that media and technology offer unique ways for autistic youth to express their sociality, despite the significant challenges and drawbacks of such social connectivity for this population.
