Video Games Used to Treat ADHD - News at SPOnG.com

Video Games Used to Treat ADHD - News at SPOnG.com: "Video Games Used to Treat ADHD
'Ooh look, a dog with a fluffy tail!'
14 Mar 2006

Link to This Article http://news.spong.com/article/9768


New research suggests that playing videogames can positively assist sufferers of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and help to improve sufferers' attention skills. SPOnG, having the attention span of a gnat on speed, is keen to hear more about this research.

ADHD, a well-documented and commonplace ailment amongst hyperactive children and those who work in the media, is still - in all seriousness - a puzzling and much-misunderstood learning disorder. Sufferers are commonly described as being ‘wired’ - restless, impulsive, and easily distracted. Acute sufferers are commonly prescribed the much-maligned stimulant Ritalin, which calms the jitters children with ADHD experience.

In adults, Ritalin basically works like a speed-style stimulant, which suggests to SPOnG that it might not be something we really want to be feeding our kids if we can help it. However, if playing videogames can somehow improve an ADHD sufferer’s attention shortfall and overall mental state, then we do want to know more.

Clinical Psychologist Henry Owens, according to a recent report in USA Today, is developing videogame-based technology that helps ADHD-sufferers to better regulate their own brainwave activity. Owens says that ADHD sufferers experience 'constant frustration' and he has recently began offering a patented video game system to some of his patients.

The S.M.A.R.T. BrainGames system Owen is using has been developed by the San Diego-based company CyberLearning Technology, which sounds sufficiently enough like a William Gibson sci-"