ADD/ADHD News
July 15th 2005
Computer games 'do have benefits'
Well this is a turn up for the books! For so long we have been told that video games and computer games are bad for our children and how they should not be allowed to use these - we now hear from this study that computer games can have benefits to children.
Including those with ADHD!!!
OK so there are some things that are still considered not good but this does help us when we know that these games can keep our little and not so little adders amused for long periods of time!
Thing is because these games are full of high stimulation it seems to allow our children to stay focused far longer than anything else and we so often get people saying to us "well they can't have ADD/ADHD because they play for hours on the games". Well to a point they are right - they can play these for hours but the reason is due to the high stimulation which allows them to keep focused on these and the instant rewards they get from them. So these games obviously do keep them focused far more than a lot of other things including school work which often is just 2 dimensional and therefore does not keep their full concentration.
Same goes for computers due to the various ways the computer works with things including just plain writing on the screen there are various flickers going on which seem to help with the stimulation to keep them focused which is why they can often achieve far more work on the computer than they can in normal work books.
The following is a small excerpt from the BBC Online article about this:
"Computer games can aid children's health and do not deserve a wholly negative reputation, an expert says.
Mark Griffiths, professor of gambling studies at Nottingham Trent University, says they can be a distraction for children undergoing painful treatment.
Writing in the British Medical Journal, he added that games can also help children with attention deficit disorders gain social skills."
Anyway to read the rest of the article
click here
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