An avatar goes toward a support group meeting for people with anxiety disorders.A San Francisco Chronicle story reports on the growing use of the virtual community, Second Life, to provide support groups for people with a variety of health issues or disabilities: "Second Life's support groups, which help people cope with everything from cancer, depression, bipolar disorder and autism, to caretaker stress. There are more than 70 such groups, according to Second Life's Health Support Coalition. Most are secular. While a few groups are facilitated by associations such as the American Cancer Society, peers run most."
The support groups developed by people in the autism community have been particularly popular, the Chronicle writes.
One of the most beloved community members in Second Life was The Sojourner, a multiple stroke survivor who created the "Shockproof Dreams" sim for stroke victims, people with autism and Asperger's syndrome and the people who care for
them. In real life, she once worked as a speech pathologist and her son has Asperger's. A sweet, empathetic-looking avatar with auburn hair, in real life she died suddenly in May 2008, provoking an outpouring of in-world mourning.The Metaverse Messenger - one of the virtual world's newspapers - reprinted an interview with "Soj" as she was known, from June 2007. Second Life "isn't just a game," she emphasized. "It is a widely diverse opportunity to explore every aspect of life, if you choose to. If you are disabled in any way, this is a way to move beyond the disability." Before her own strokes, she had worked professionally with stroke survivors. "I quickly realized that Second Life was a good rehabilitation tool. ... It helps with memory, planning things, using math, making friends, developing self-confidence, using skills you thought lost to stroke."
Soj created not only support groups but a "sandbox," complete with tutorials and classes, where people can freely create objects out of "prims," the core building material (think molecules) of Second Life, and thus create clothing, homes, entire landscapes. "A farmer/landscaper may not be able to use a plow in Real Life, but can landscape or have animals in Second Life," she said in her last talk, now posted at her memorial on the Shockproof Dreams sim. People with autism or Asperger's especially seem to appreciate Second Life.
The literature welcoming visitors to Brigadoon, a community within Shockproof Dreams, describes how the virtual world lacks "the richness of expression and gesture found in Real Life," so people who become easily overwhelmed by real-world stimuli face "fewer distractions to worry about." The Web site www.autistics.org sponsors a group of "activist autistic people" called the Autistic Liberation Front, who engage in discussions, workshops and conferences. They have a museum and library and hang out in a social area called Porcupine.
Researchers of autism use Second Life as a laboratory and tool. At the in-world SL-Labs and Teaching and Research facility, at the University of Derby in England, Simon Bignell, a lecturer in psychology, studies how Second Life can "enhance first life social-communication skills in people" with autistic spectrum disorders. The Center for Brain Health at the University of Texas, Dallas, offers a therapy in Second Life for people with Asperger's that helps them practice interviewing for jobs.
