Man hopes Frederick pinball center will provide fun, learning

Nov. 27--Joe Said came to pinball late, but he talks about it with the zeal of a convert.

Said is planning to open the non-profit Pinball Education Center in mid-December at a location on East Street in Frederick, to provide a place both for fun and where people with autism and other disabilities can gather.

He hopes to use pinball as a learning tool for people with autism and to help children learn elements of science, technology, engineering and math education.

There are a lot of components to a pinball machine, and just being aware of how those things work and function with the machine's buttons can be educational, he said.

"It's not just a screen and some buttons," he said.

Said, 39, didn't play pinball growing up, and didn't really discover the game until he went to college in the mid-'90s.

With its heyday in the 1960s and '70s, pinball and arcades suffered a decline in the late 1980s and '90s with the rise of video games.

"Before Pac-Man, pinball was huge," Said said.

Video game consoles dominated the '90s, but the last few years have seen a renaissance for pinball, he said.

He sees The Pinball Education Center as a place where people will be able to come in and play on evenings and weekends, and he would like to set up an after-school program.

He's gathering 20 to 30 machines to start, but hopes to add more.

But he also wants to see it serve another purpose.

According to the center's website, pinball can help improve both gross and fine motor skills and coordination, especially involving vision. It can also help teach social skills.

"I think it's really a very useful game," Said said.

He also hopes the center can serve as a destination for people on the autism spectrum.

JaLynn Prince, the president of the Madison House Autism Foundation, based in Rockville, said it's possible that many people with autism may enjoy pinball's sense of "containable excitement, and predictable excitement."

The lights and other features of the game can be very encouraging, she said.

"There's something very tactile about a pinball machine," she said.

Prince said her 28-year-old autistic son likes to play skeeball and other games at arcades.

The mechanics of the pinball machines may also appeal to some people with autism, although it's hard to speculate because everyone on the autism spectrum is very different.

While she hasn't seen any research on autism and pinball and said she isn't endorsing Said's idea, she thinks the concept sounds intriguing.

"It's an interesting thought," she said.

Follow Ryan Marshall on Twitter: @RMarshallFNP.

___

(c)2017 The Frederick News-Post (Frederick, Md.)

Visit The Frederick News-Post (Frederick, Md.) at www.fredericknewspost.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.