{"id":4814,"date":"2019-06-05T16:09:17","date_gmt":"2019-06-05T15:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.specialeffect.org.uk\/?p=4814"},"modified":"2025-02-21T13:57:57","modified_gmt":"2025-02-21T13:57:57","slug":"without-it-his-life-wouldnt-be-the-same","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.specialeffect.org.uk\/news\/without-it-his-life-wouldnt-be-the-same","title":{"rendered":"“Without it his life wouldn’t be the same.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Update: Sadly, Aaron passed a few years after publication of this article, but we thank the family for allowing us to continue sharing his story and his love of gaming with everyone.)<\/em><\/p>\n

We tweeted last week about our visit to Aaron<\/a>, a remarkable gamer with some of the most accomplished skills we\u2019ve seen for a long while. He plays mainly with his feet because of his muscular dystrophy, with the addition of some small finger switches. It\u2019s a setup that Nomi worked out for him a while ago.<\/p>\n

His mum Julie is just as much of a superstar as well, and she\u2019s in no doubt of the positive impact that his gaming continues to have for the whole family.<\/p>\n

\"Smiling<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter Nomi (one of our specialist therapists) came out and assessed him it was, like, overnight it transformed his life, it\u2019s made him so happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore that, he was still playing but trying to use the controllers was quite stressful. Every few seconds we had to reposition his hands. He was getting sad because there were buttons he couldn\u2019t reach, where he used to have a little more movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou feel bad, you feel helpless, because it\u2019s not the sort of thing you can just go down the high street and buy an instant solution for.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBut with this setup the impact is enormous. I still do have to reposition things sometimes but he\u2019s happy all the time. Like any parent, if your child\u2019s happy, you\u2019re happy. And it frees up time for us parents and carers as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

“I feel really happy as well because it\u2019s about his independence. He hasn\u2019t got the same sort of social side of life as most teenagers. My other kids would have been out and about at his age with their friends, but he doesn\u2019t have that because he can\u2019t go anywhere without a carer, and that\u2019s a big restriction on things like conversation and developing relationships. His friends can\u2019t really go up to him and start talking too freely.”<\/p>\n

“But the gaming gives back that huge social plus – the headphones go on and he\u2019s chatting with his friends. He can talk openly about stuff he wouldn\u2019t talk about in front of me or other adults, and he can also talk to friends with disabilities, swapping experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone needs that banter.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s really reassuring to hear Julie echoing the thoughts of other people we support. We\u2019re concentrating hard on the practicalities of getting people back in the game, and it\u2019s lovely to know that there are so many more benefits to what we\u2019re doing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Update: Sadly, Aaron passed a few years after publication of this article, but we thank the family for allowing us to continue sharing his story and his love of gaming with everyone.) We tweeted last week about our visit to Aaron, a remarkable gamer with some of the most accomplished skills we\u2019ve seen for a… View Article<\/a>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4816,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[21],"class_list":["post-4814","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-case-study","tag-aaron"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n"Without it his life wouldn't be the same." - SpecialEffect<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.specialeffect.org.uk\/news\/without-it-his-life-wouldnt-be-the-same\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\""Without it his life wouldn't be the same." - SpecialEffect\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"(Update: Sadly, Aaron passed a few years after publication of this article, but we thank the family for allowing us to continue sharing his story and his love of gaming with everyone.) 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