Adapting Habitica for Autism

While it may be difficult for people on the autism spectrum, Habitica may help people on the autism spectrum to develop the skills necessary to overcome their difficulties and in turn, improve their lives.

Everyone's success with the strategies below will vary from individual to individual. It is important to consider what works for the player, as a strategy that works for one play may not necessarily work for another.

If you even suspect that you have autism, even if just self diagnosed, you may find it helpful to head to the Autistic Adventurers' Guild, a guild of autistic people supporting one another in their journeys, including those who are self diagnosed.

Guilds
Guilds are also a great way to find people going through the same experiences and connect with those people. They can also be used to find and communicate with people of the same or similar interests, which can be helpful especially for those with a narrow interest range.

The topic in which the guilds discuss can range from Gaming to Fandom and everything in between. They can also discuss lifestyle and can help you learn a new language.

If you also have issues with mental health in conjunction with your autism, you may find checking out the guilds on your specific mental health issue helpful. For example, if you have anxiety or social anxiety as well as autism, the Anxiety Alliance Guild may be of help to you.

Clear Task Setting
While it is important to be clear about what tasks mean for all users of Habitica, this can be especially important for people on the autism spectrum. In particular, they should be specific about their particular tasks, taking advantage of the notes on a particular task to do so.

Taking Care of Yourself
When you are at your worst, it can become difficult to take care of yourself. Poor self-care, as well as being detrimental to your mental health, can cause problems in our life. So it is important that you learn to take care of yourself as much as you can. Care for yourself is challenge in many aspects of self care for those on the autism spectrum.

Getting proper sleep
Poor sleep hygiene can be detrimental to anyone's mental health. In order to improve your sleeping habits, you should choose a sleep routine, with the same waking up and bed time everyday, even during the weekends. The sleep hygiene challenge from the Autistic Adventurers Guild is a sleep routine challenge specific for those on the Autism Spectrum.

Personal Hygiene
Keeping yourself clean can help you to lead healthy lives, which can in turn optimize your functioning. Sometimes you may forget to keep yourselves clean, so using dailies can help remind yourself to do so, especially routine things that you do regularly. In addition to setting your dailies, you can also set alarms for you to do your personal hygiene tasks.

Diet
Eating well is important for you to lead healthy lives. Sometimes, it is easy to forget to eat, or eat unhealthily, especially if you are a fussy eater. Dailies and alarms can remind you to eat regularly and healthily. In addition to that, the Nutrition and Hydration challenge may also assist you in eating regular meals.

Fussy eaters may need to consider broadening their meals, as they may have some nutritional deficiencies due to it. To do so..[to be expanded]

Exercise
Exercising is also something that you may be prone to forget. However, it is important that you lead a lifestyle with at least some exercises every day. You do not need to be able to run a marathon, but you can start small and add more when you feel comfortable doing so.

Medication
When you are prescribed medication, it is important that you take them as instructed. This is best done as a daily since it is likely something you will need to do regularly. Additionally, the daily can also serve as a reminder for you to take your medicine. Tasks should be adjusted to your specific prescriptions.

Aiding Executive Functioning
Many users on the autism spectrum have impaired executive functioning. Sometimes, this makes their day to day activities difficult to manage. Habitica can help you manage some difficulties associated with impaired executive functioning. In addition, the Executive Dysfunction Blues challenge can help you if you are having trouble coping with your executive functioning.

It may also be useful for you to learn to use the Data Display Tool to see your progress and the potential damage that you may take due to undone dailies. This may be especially useful if you wish to see hard data on your performance.

Chunking
When a person on the autism spectrum encounters a major task, they can very easily be overwhelmed with the enormity of the task. Chunking, or breaking large tasks into many smaller tasks can help with initiative and can provide a greater incentive to complete the tasks, especially when it comes to long and difficult tasks.

Dailies that may be long and overwhelming may be broken into smaller, more manageable parts of a larger task. The checklist function can aid the player in chunking large dailies. They may reduce the damage inflicted upon the player and their party if the checklist items have been completed. Some players may want to check out strategies given in the page players who can't do tasks reliably, especially those who are starting out or those who struggle with task completion.

To-Dos are ideal for longer term tasks that need to be broken down, or for tasks that are not done on a regular basis. Due to their nature, To-Dos can be difficult to manage with impaired executive functioning. They can also be chunked by using their checklists, which can be useful for large tasks that seem overwhelming. Additionally, the added rewards for completing checklist items when the task is done can provide an incentive to complete the task.

Developing Social Skills
Developing socials skills can be a rather tedious affair for a person on the Autism Spectrum. Whilst it may be impractical for you to meet new people everyday, you should still make an effort to learn and practise these skills regularly. In fact, you can also practise them with people you already know.

By making sure you have some sort of social contact everyday, even if all you can manage is online, can seriously help your practise your social skills. Ideally, you should practise them in various diverse social settings such as teams, small parties, on phone calls and in one to one conversations. This would allow you to have a better understanding of what to do in these situations. Additionally, Habits can be used to encourage the practise of social skill, especially ones that you have just learnt.

Challenges such as Make a Phone Call and Show Someone You Care may be helpful in encouraging social interaction that may be daunting otherwise.

Additionally, be patient in your learning of social skills. Everyone will progress at a different pace, so a skill one person learns in a week can take another 6 weeks to learn. Do not expect to learn to be social at the pace of a nurotypical, as they like already instinctively know the skills that takes you time and effort to learn.

Positive Habits
Positive habits are a good way to celebrate something good, no matter how big or small. For example, a player can create a Positive Habit for "Have a successful conversation or social interaction".

They are also a great way to reinforce good actions! You can use them for a variety of things- including, but not limited to- emotions, energy, understanding one another and social anxiety.