Cubing and autism

Many of the top cubers are on the autistic spectrum to varying degrees and cubing competitions have been a massive help for many autistic children and their parents as cubing competitions provide a way to socialise more easily as everyone shares a common and unique hobby.

The most notable example is American speedcuber, Max Park, Max Park was diagnosed with autism at the age of 2 but his parents would not let that define him. When he was 10 years old, he received a cube and quickly became quite good at it, the cube helped him improve his fine motor skills but also his social skills, as his parents soon found out. Max Park would watch lots of cubing content on Youtube and his parents would soon find out that he had become pretty good at it as he won the 6x6 event at his second competition, his parents also noticed that he began having short conversations with other cubers at the competition which they were more excited about then the fact he had won the event. Max Park has gone on to hold many world records and win the world championships twice.

Another notable example is Kim Roger Haraldsen from Norway, he is not as famous as Max Park but has achieved very good results in speedcubing despite his autism. Kim Roger is ranked 3rd in the world for solving a 3x3 with one hand (single solve time) and has been Norwegian national champion many times and in many different events, his parents also organise small speedcubing competitions in their home town of Sandnes and supported him travelling to compete around the world.

Speedcubing is a great activity to introduce autistic children to, especially at a young age, as it clearly helps develop fine motor skills and provides social interaction opportunities which would simply not happen in sports clubs and other school activities.