The Weyburn Gaming Community group, led by Ian Isaak, local pastor for the Weyburn Free Methodist Church; has a Dungeons and Dragons autism group that meets every other Saturday. While the game Dungeons and Dragons has often received unfavourable publicity, there are many who reject the negative narrative. Instead, those who love the game maintain the game is an excellent tool for developing many necessary life skills such as relationship building, creativity, and collaborative teamwork. 

“In my autism group, one of the things I’ve watched grow in them, is cause and consequence or this idea that decisions I make or actions I take have consequences or outcomes,” explained Isaak. 

“We use the story of these encounters that they have to say, ‘Hey look, if you bust open that door and just run on in, the guards aren’t going to like that and they are going to arrest you and your character is going to get put in jail, are you sure you want to do that?’” shared Isaak. “Then you get to watch them reason out and start making different choices based on different outcomes they are looking for.”  

While cause and effect learning is an integral part of the game, developing financial literacy is also included in the experience. 

“Things like managing money, you have to have goals to buy items and so managing money is something they learn in that game,” shared Isaak. 

The challenges of the game include developing mental and emotional resilience.  

“There’s a lot of managing disappointment when things don’t go well or someone is stronger than you expect, and they defeat you, how do you manage that disappointment, what do you do with those emotions,” explained Isaak. “These are all things we work on through the game in the background, the kids are having a blast, they don’t even tune in that some of this learning is even happening, which is really cool.” 

“I’m not intentionally trying to teach these things, I’m not an educator or teacher, but I am trying to provide a safe fun environment that will hopefully build skills for them that will translate well into the real world,” said Isaak. 

Admittance into the group is by invitation only.  Those looking to join the group are required to be on the autism spectrum or have special needs. To contact Pastor Isaak, you can reach him on the Facebook group here or at his email at simwiz@gmail.com.