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 For the study, researchers focused on 38 children with what’s known
as sensory processing dysfunction, a condition that can make them
unusually sensitive to things like the sound of a toilet flushing or
the feel of a tag inside a shirt. The experiment also included a
control group of 25 typically developing kids.
After four weeks of playing games designed to help kids with sensory
problems, researchers found a significant improvement in attention
skills among a subset of 20 kids with sensory issues who also had
attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD).
“Children with sensory processing dysfunction have differences in
the way their brains are wired,” said senior study author Dr. Elysa
Marco of the University of California San Francisco.
“We think that there are differences in not only the wiring for
sensory modulation but also for what we call cognitive control which
includes the ability to sustain attention even in the face of
distraction,” Marco said by email.
The University of California San Francisco and Akili Interactive
Labs are developing the game kids played on a digital platform
called Project: EVO. Researchers are investigating EVO as a therapy
for children with cognitive impairments, including sensory
processing dysfunction and ADHD.
An estimated one in 20 kids have sensory processing problems.
Depending on their issues, they might be treated with occupational
therapy to help them become more comfortable with input that upsets
them, like loud noise or bright light, or they might be trained to
become more sensitive to input they ignore, like pain, that makes
them engage in reckless behavior.
The game is designed to help strengthen how the brain processes and
prioritizes thoughts and external stimuli. Players help a character
in the game navigate through winding paths, avoiding walls and
obstacles. As they improve, the game becomes more difficult.
Kids in the study ranged in age from 8 to 11 years old. Researchers
asked them to play EVO for 25 minutes, five days a week for four
weeks.
At the start of the study, 54 percent of the children with sensory
processing problems also had ADHD, based on symptoms reported by
their parents, researchers report in PLoS ONE.
After playing the game for a month, parents of seven of the kids
with both sensory issues and ADHD reported enough improvement in
their children for kids to no longer meet the clinical definition
for ADHD, the study found.
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Beyond its small size and the experimental nature of the therapeutic
game being tested, other limitations of the study include the lack
of tests comparing EVO to a placebo game that wasn’t designed to
achieve specific medical outcomes, the authors note.
“One wouldn’t hypothesize that any random game would help,” said
Aaron Seitz, director of the University of California Riverside
Brain Game Center for Mental Fitness and Wellbeing.
“Key to the success of this study is that the Evo game is designed
to train players to selectively attend to target stimuli and ignore
distracting stimuli,” Seitz, who wasn’t involved in the study, said
by email.
If it reaches the market, it might make sense to consider EVO among
the behavioral interventions to give children in addition to
medication, Seitz added.
“The ideal is for drugs to be temporary measures that together with
therapy can help children learn to cope with their conditions and
then as they improve they can be weaned off the drugs,” Seitz said.
“While there is some hope that this type of video game . . . can
replace drugs, the more realistic perspective is that it is an
additional tool that doctors and parents can use to improve
outcomes.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2qx43Ji PLoS ONE, online April 5, 2017.
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