The hidden purpose of Games: Tracking, diagnosing ADHD

Noah Madson remembers being exhausted after hours of tests for his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. "Boy, those were complicated," said his mother, Nancy. "He'd come out and say, 'My brain hurts.' "

Today, Noah's task is less of a headache. After the 14-year-old plays a video game for 20 minutes, his parents and teachers will have data that paint a comprehensive picture of how his mind is functioning.

Better yet, as the St. Louis Park, Minn., teenager plays the game more, his memory and processing speed might actually improve.

Noah is part of a pilot study for CogCubed, a Minneapolis-based startup that develops games to help diagnose and ameliorate cognitive disorders such as ADHD.

The company has already attracted $20,000 in funding from Google and is a semifinalist in the Minnesota Cup, a competition for entrepreneurs.

CogCubed was founded by a husband-and-wife team: game developer Kurt Roots and child psychiatrist Monika Heller.

Their goal is to use sensor technology to produce objective data about symptoms that are often hard to pin down, such as inattentiveness and hyperactivity.

The game that CogCubed is testing now uses Sifteo, a platform that consists of small cubes with screens on them.

The game, called "Groundskeeper," asks the user to use one cube - the mallet - to hit a gopher that pops up on the screens of the other three cubes. As the game goes on, distractions like rabbits and chirping birds come up, and the instructions change.

The cubes produce data on more than 70 different variables, including errors, response times and even whether the player is fidgeting.

Those data come together in a Web portal that clinicians, parents and teachers can use to evaluate a child's cognitive function in a very specific way.

"That's part of our excitement with it, that we're getting so much detailed information," Nancy Madson said. "I can't wait for it to affect (Noah's) education plan for the coming year."

This year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released record numbers for ADHD diagnoses: 11 percent of school-aged children have been diagnosed with the disorder, including nearly 1 in 5 high-school-age boys.

It's not clear what's behind the increased numbers, which represented a 41 percent jump in the past decade and contributed to an FDA shortage of commonly prescribed ADHD medicines in 2011.

But, Heller said, one thing is clear: Caretakers for children with ADHD could use extra help.

"Six to 12 months is the average waiting period to see a child/adolescent psychiatrist (for a comprehensive evaluation)," she said. "How phenomenal would it be if Mom could have an assessment tool at home?"

CogCubed aims to start selling its "Groundskeeper" training game, which adjusts to each player's weaknesses to help improve cognitive skills, in the next few months. Noah and 36 other students with ADHD are testing that game, playing twice a day for three to five days a week.

Another version of the game that serves as a diagnostic tool won't be released until CogCubed receives FDA approval for it, Roots said. The game wouldn't replace comprehensive psychological evaluations, but would provide doctors with data to aid diagnosis.

In a University of Minnesota study, that version of the game matched a psychiatrist's ADHD diagnosis 75 percent of the time. The Continuous Performance Test, a computer-based diagnostic that clinicians often use, has about a 62 percent accuracy rate, Heller said, although that number varies.

"We're really trying to do something that is clinically validated," Roots said. "We don't want to make promises that we can't keep. We're doing the best we can to make sure we're not selling something that gets people's hopes up and doesn't work."

CogCubed is also beginning to partner with local autism centers to test the Groundskeeper games' ability to provide data about autism, Roots said.

It's important that products that tout improvement of cognitive function stay away from broad claims and focus their research on long-term effects, said Max Wiznitzer, a pediatric neurologist who serves on the professional advisory board for Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

"Can we improve working memory and teach them little tricks? The answer is yes," Wiznitzer said. "Will it somehow make that person tons better in their day-to-day functioning? ... That's where I'm concerned when people make these kinds of claims. It's not the miracle cure. I wish it were."

The amount of data that CogCubed collects could make it a game-changer in the mental health field, Heller said.

While a computer-based test just measures errors, the Sifteo cubes' sensors measure every move in between. That means there's less room for misdiagnosis - and more room to grow.

The results of the pilot study at Noah's school, Groves Academy, could help teachers customize lesson plans for each student's particular needs, Groves' assistant director of diagnostics Zach Eakman said.

"We'll really have great data, not only pre- and post-testing, but for years to come, to be able to see if there's any discernible differences specifically in those two areas we talked about, processing speed and working memory," he said.

Eakman said the school, which serves children with learning disabilities, was impressed by CogCubed's product.

"Groves gets approached a lot by outside therapies as potential partnerships," he said, adding that this is only the second study the school has agreed to be a part of in 35 years. "It's because of not only their research results, but their approach to research, which includes a commitment to third-party and (long-term) analysis."

Nancy Madson said she's thrilled about the game, which Heller said was designed to be "just boring enough" to prevent overstimulation.

"It's an opportunity for our son to become more self-sufficient with his ADHD and his learning differences," Madson said. "And it's fun."

Science and Maths: Playing 'boys' games help Girls

The observation that males appear to be superior to females in some fields of academic study has prompted a wealth of research hoping to shed light on whether this is attributable to nature or nurture.

Although there is no difference in general intelligence between the sexes, studies over the past 35 years have consistently found that overall men do much better in tests of spatial ability than women.

This difference may have something to do with why there are still fewer women in tertiary education studying science, technology, engineering and math – all subjects where it helps to have good spatial ability.

More in-depth assessment, however, reveals that this might be an over-simplification of the facts.

A new review, published in Springer's journal Sex Roles, sheds light on one of the factors contributing to these gender differences in spatial ability, that of gender-roles.

Although children are born either male or female, individuals differ in their degree of masculine and feminine identification and endorsement of masculine and feminine gender roles.


The review was carried out by David Reilly and David Neumann from Griffith University in Queensland, Australia.

Reilly and Neumann note that studies in their review reported finding larger within-gender variations in spatial ability than between-gender.

This then led them to look more specifically at the data on variables within males and females which might be able to explain this.

The researchers analysed twelve studies which had looked specifically at one aspect of spatial ability, namely mental rotation, in high school pupils, college attendees and young adults.

Collectively these studies showed a significant association between masculinity and mental rotation performance for both men and women.

In other words, men and women with either a strong masculine or androgynous gender-identity fared better in mental rotation tasks.

The authors suggest that it is the considerable variation in the levels of typically masculine and feminine traits and behaviours, that children of the same sex develop, which account for the inter-gender variability.

Masculine identification leads to cultivation of mathematical and scientific skills whereas feminine identification facilitates verbal and language abilities.

These gender-roles are not mutually exclusive, with some children of both genders developing a healthy integration of both roles.

Development of spatial ability is refined through play and recreational activities, with traditionally masculine activities helping to promote development of spatial ability.

Therefore improving girls' performance in subjects which require good spatial ability may involve the deliberate inclusion of what are commonly seen as stereo-typically male activities into their daily lives, rather than encouraging sex-segregation of activities.

The authors conclude: "We have seen many changes in society's beliefs about gender equality in the intervening decades since Sharon Churnin Nash (Stanford University) proposed her gender-role mediation hypothesis of intellectual development in 1979.

However, for spatial ability at least, this association seems as relevant today as when the claim was first made."

More information: Reilly, D. and Neumann, D.L. (2013), Gender-role differences in spatial ability: a meta-analytic review, Sex Roles. DOI 10.1007/s11199-013-0269-0

Nintendo Wii™ game controllers help diagnose eye disorder (ocular torticollis)

Nintendo Wii remotes are not all about fun and games.

Scientists can use them to assess and diagnose children with an abnormal head position caused by (ocular torticollis) eye diseases.

As described in a recent Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science article, researchers developed a low-cost digital head posture measuring device with Nintendo Wiimotes to help diagnose this condition, medically called ocular torticollis.

"Torticollis occurs in about 1.3% of children," said author, Jeong-Min Hwang, MD, of Seoul National University College of Medicine.

"Accurate measurement of the angle of the abnormal head position is crucial for evaluating disease progression and determining treatment or surgical plans in parties with ocular torticollis."

Hwang and his colleagues point out that in clinical practice where it can be difficult to get reliable data from children whose heads move constantly, a digital head posture measuring systems using electronic devices such as the motion tracking capability offered by Wiimotes would be an ideal alternative.

Below is an old (2008) YouTube video which helps to demonstrate the Wii head tracking technique.

The researchers used two Wii controllers to develop an infrared optical head tracker (IOHT) that automatically measures and records the angle of the head in real-time.

The remotes were connected to a monitoring computer with an infrared camera and Bluetooth connectivity.

The IOHT was evaluated for accuracy, validity and reliability by comparing it with the 'Cervical Range of Motion Instrument' or CROM device, one of the most widely used head posture measuring devices in hospitals.

Results demonstrated that in measuring the head posture of normal adult subjects, the measurement of the one-dimensional and three-dimensional (3-D) positions of a human head with IOHT were very close to those of CROM.

There were slightly more deviations of measurements between IOHT and CROM than the researchers expected in 3-D movement of the head, which the researchers contribute to the structural nature of CROM rather than inaccurate measurement of IOHT.

In looking at the future, the research team hopes this new tool will play a key role in diagnosing ophthalmic patients. "Considering its high performance, ease of use and low cost, we believe IOHT has the potential to be widely used as a head posture measuring device in clinical practice."

Kids Learn to Flex Their Cultural Muscles

Preschool kids angling for a reward display social skills that may, on a grander scale, turn human cultures into cauldrons of change and innovation.

Groups of 3- to 4-year-olds, but not clusters of chimpanzees or capuchin monkeys, solved progressively more complex tasks in a puzzle box by employing three key social strategies, say zoologist Rachel Kendal of Durham University in England and her colleagues.

First, children who solved a task taught struggling peers what to do. Second, kids often copied what others did. And finally, task solvers frequently shared stickers they received as rewards with kids who hadn’t yet earned stickers.

This package of social behaviours characterized four- or five-person groups in which at least two kids solved a three-stage puzzle and most of the rest reached stage two, Kendal’s team reports in the March 2 Science.

Chimps and capuchins in groups of eight to 32 rarely got beyond stage one of the same puzzle, the researchers say. No evidence of teaching or sharing of food rewards appeared in these primates. Chimps copied others at the first stage but not at higher stages.

“The stark contrast in skills supporting cultural ability between children and both chimps and capuchins was surprising,” Kendal says. Her study is the first to use the same task to explore social learning in different species.

Previous studies of children’s problem-solving in groups have similarly focused on teaching, imitation and sharing, remarks anthropologist Joseph Henrich of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

These behaviors critically enable human cultures to make rapid advances in knowledge and technology, he says. Further research needs to untangle precisely how this process works, Henrich adds.

Children’s puzzle-box successes may reflect other human mental specialties, such as reasoning with language and inferring others’ intentions, suggest psychologist Robert Kurzban of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and anthropologist H. Clark Barrett of the University of California, Los Angeles, in a commentary published in the same issue of Science.

In Kendal’s study, participants reached chutes containing stickers or food first by moving a sliding door to the left or right, then by pushing either of two buttons to move the door further in the same direction, and finally by turning a dial using one of two colored holes, releasing the door to slide still further.

After 30 hours, only one chimp mastered the puzzle box, but the strategies didn’t spread. After 53 hours, no capuchins cracked all three tasks, and only two solved two tasks.

After 2.5 hours, five of eight kids’ groups contained at least two individuals who had conquered the puzzle box, with most remaining kids in those groups solving two tasks.

Help Children Make their own Learning Games

Click on the pictures to visit GamestarMechanic.

We are excited to think that children can use platforms like  GamestarMechanic.com to make math games to help stimulate the learning process.

Let us know your experiences with this product.

Pirate Queen: Making waves with online learning game

She was a legendary pirate of the high seas around Ireland but Grainne Mhaol is now set to help children with dyslexia and other reading problems.

An animator whose child has dyslexia has developed a unique online game to encourage others with the learning disability to read.

Linda O'Sullivan, from Co Clare, came up with the idea for her 'Reading Bridges' programme by combining her background in children's animation with her 10-year-old son Oisin's experience with dyslexia.

"This is the first product of its kind designed in Ireland and it's all about creating a fun environment for children who are struggling with reading, or even reluctant to read.

"Children learn better when they're having fun and this game is all about fun-based learning, without the fear of failure," she said.

Embrace
To encourage children to embrace the written word, she based the game on the ancient legend of Grainne Mhaol, the legendary pirate 'Sea Queen of Connacht'.

The game follows the adventures of Jack, a modern boy who falls through a time portal. He meets Grace, a feisty 16th century girl, who is determined to become a pirate like her father.

Together they set off on a series of adventures, which take children through games that helps them with word building, word recognition, short-term memory and visual skills.

The animated game uses phonics -- the building blocks of reading -- in which children learn to pronounce words by associating letters or groups of letters with the sounds they represent.

The phonetic pronunciation of the word -- such as "c - a - t" -- is then reinforced with an animated image and sound of the word.

The games -- aimed at children aged 7 to 12 -- are also designed for children who are reluctant to read or who are falling behind their peers' reading levels at school.

"It's all about building up enthusiasm to read," Ms O'Sullivan said.

Children are encouraged to tackle more complex words through a series of rewards -- such as being awarded gold stars on a chart or getting a loyalty badge, she added.

The game can be particularly helpful, she said, for children who have been diagnosed with dyslexia -- a neurological condition which affects their ability to read.

"While these kids have skills that are enormously important in our world, many quickly turn off reading because of difficulties with perceptual or auditory skills related to dyslexia. Their default is often to find any excuse to avoid reading at all and so much learning is lost as a result.

"Everybody knows somebody with either dyslexia or an undiagnosed reading difficulty," she said.

"Approximately 10pc of all children are somewhere on the dyslexic spectrum, and these children are bright, creative and often visually and spatially very talented.

"Albert Einstein, Richard Branson, Jamie Oliver and Walt Disney are just a cross section of talented dyslexics who have changed the world we live in," she added.

A free seven-day trial of the game is available on www.readingbridges.com

Dyslexia: Letter Reversals - Bulldog demo video - YouTube

Let me introduce you to the Bulldog Letter Reversals, a downloadable games, worksheets and kinaesthetic activities pack for children aged 5-12 years.

The company claims that Bulldog, the adorable dog featured throughout this multi-sensory learning pack, helps children to learn and remember the difference between ‘b’ and ‘d’.

They also claim that introducing your child to Bulldog, will give him / her a strategy to remember the difference between ‘b’ and ‘d’ and in most cases it will resolve the problem entirely and you will have a happy smiling child again.

The company expects the Bulldog theme keep children engaged and motivated, helping them have lots of fun whilst they learn.

Check out the video below and decide for yourself!



Testimonial
“My students loved the games and materials! They would ask me ‘Can we play Bulldog again?’ Not only were the games fun for them, but they are confusing b/d far less now, and with more of the games (and flashcards) confusion will soon be a non-issue. The worksheets have also been popular with the children (and parents, for homework). Greatly recommended!”Debbie Took Primary School Teacher, Henley-on-Thames.

Check out the website  www.bulldogletterreversals.com

Video Games: A Cure for Lazy Eye - Amblyopia

At the American Academy of Opthalmology's annual meeting in Orlando, Florida, a team led by Somen Ghosh of the Micro Surgical Eye Clinic in Kolkata, India, reported that video game therapy improved the visual acuity of 10- to 18-year-olds with amblyopia, or "lazy eye".

This comes hot on the heels of similar findings from a study of adults with the condition, published in PLoS Biology by a team led by Roger Li and Dennis Levi of the University of California, Berkeley.

Even more impressive results may be on the horizon, as video games are combined with another approach, known as "perceptual learning".

Amblyopia occurs when the neural connections from one eye to the brain fail to develop normally. Over time, the brain reacts by ignoring the blurry input from this "weaker" eye.

The condition can be treated in childhood by patching the good eye and using visual training exercises to build the faulty neural connections - but the dogma has until recently been that little can be done after about the age of nine.

The idea of using video games stemmed from the discovery that expert gamers have unusually strong visual skills.

Subsequent studies have shown that action games can improve contrast sensitivity in people with normal vision.

Ghosh's studies involved children and teenagers with amblyopia who received the standard treatment of patch, eyeglasses and visual exercises, with or without supplementary treatments.

Even the group given just the basic treatment showed some improvement after one year - but those who were also instructed to play first-person shooter or driving games each day did noticeably better.



In adults, some of the best results in treating amblyopia have not used computer games, but instead trained people to distinguish blurry grey patterns known as Gabor patches.

In 2004, a team led by Uri Polat of Tel Aviv University showed that this perceptual learning resulted in two-fold improvements to sufferers' contrast sensitivity.

But even Polat, who has recently applied a similar approach to treating the natural deterioration in close vision that happens with age, concedes that the exercises are a bit boring for teens.

So what about combining perceptual learning with gaming? That's now being tried by Levi's lab, in collaboration with a team led by Daphne Bavelier of the University of Rochester in New York.

The researchers have embedded Gabor patches into a modified version of the first-person shooter Unreal Tournament, which they are now testing as a treatment for amblyopia.

"You have to shoot at the patches," Bavelier explains. "If you don't they transform into nasty bots that are really difficult to kill.

Dyslexia and Boggle: Using Word Games to Help Spelling Practice

We all learn better and concentrate more if we're doing something that's FUN, rather than a chore. Many adults and the parents of childrenwith Dyslexia enjoy using word games to make spelling more fun.

Simple Games such as Hangman and Boggle are now available online, or Downloadable format for the PC, MAC and iPAD, from the internet

The rules of Boggle are indeed simple.
Each player searches for words that can be constructed from the letters of sequentially adjacent cubes, where "adjacent" cubes are those horizontally, vertically or diagonally neighbouring.

Words must be at least three letters long, may include singular and plural (or other derived forms) separately, but may not use the same letter cube more than once per word.

Each player records all the words he or she finds by writing on a private sheet of paper. After three minutes have elapsed, all players must immediately stop writing and the game enters the scoring phase.

You will find a number of versions from different suppliers/ developers at the CNET Download site here

NB: Remember to only download games or other internet content from reputable sites and be very careful to scan apps for viruses and malware.

Toys for Children with Special Needs - Blog link

I would very much like to connect you to another blogger, Max's Mum  She has put together a very comprehensive list of toys that would be suitable for children with special needs and, to assist the reader, she has categorised them into different skills development sections.

The picture shown is of Rody the Inflatable Hopping Horse and it is recommended by Kerry, a mother with two boys who have cerebral palsy. She says, "It's great for balance and strengthening muscles."

If you wish to see the full list of toys, games and books shown on Max's Mum's website, click here.

NB: This site does not recommend products or services but does provide links to other websites for information only. Caveat Emptor - Use normal levels of caution when purchasing items over the internet.

Teaching Social Awareness: MyfriendQuest

MyfriendQuest Mainly aimed at teaching social skills to autistic children and teenagers, it is a very interesting approach.

Research Study: Children's songs, clapping games improve motor and cognitive skills

Study: Children's songs, clapping games improve motor and cognitive skills

Children's songs and clapping games can develop a person's motor and cognitive skills even long after childhood, a recent Israeli study suggests.

The study, by Dr. Idit Solkin of Ben-Gurion University's arts faculty, found a direct link between children's songs and clapping games and the development of important skills, both in children and in young adults, including university students.

Study Period
Solkin conducted the study over a period of five years by interviewing school and kindergarten teachers and visiting their classrooms, where she joined the children in singing. Her original goal was to figure out why children are fascinated by singing and clapping up until the end of third grade, when these pastimes are abruptly abandoned and replaced with sport.

"This fact explains a natural evolutionary process the children are going through," she said. "The clapping and singing games appear naturally in children's lives around the age of seven, and disappear around the age of 10. In this narrow window, these activities serve as a developmental tool that reflects many of the children's needs - emotional, sociological, physiological and cognitive. It's a transition stage that leads them to the next phases of growing up."

Motor and Cognitive Skills
Though the relationship between music and intellectual development in children has been studied extensively - prompting countless parents to obtain a Mozart record or two for their young, just in case - Solkin said that no in-depth study had previously been made of the effect that singing and clapping games have on children's motor and cognitive skills.

"We found that about 20 percent of children in the first, second and third grade take up these songs and demonstrate skills absent in children who don't take part in such activities," she said. "We found that children who clap and sing write better, with fewer spelling errors and nicer handwriting. Their teachers also believe their social integration is better than that of children who don't take part in these games."

School Study
As part of the study, Solkin went to several elementary school classrooms and engaged the children in singing and clapping activities over a period of 10 weeks. "Within a very short period of time, the children who until then hadn't taken part in such activities caught up in their cognitive abilities to those who did," she said.

This finding led Solkin to conclude that singing and clapping games should be made an integral part of education for children aged six to 10, for the purpose of motor and cognitive training.

University Students
She also found that singing and clapping games have a clear effect on adults: University students who filled out her questionnaires reported that after taking up such games, they became more focused and less tense.

"These techniques are associated with childhood, and many adults treat them as a joke," she said. "But once they take them up, they report feeling more alert and in a better mood."

Therapeutic Games and Music for Auditory Hypersensitive and ADHD Children

Therapeutic games and music for auditory hypersensitive, autistic, downs syndrome, pdd and add children.

Lecture delivered to the World Organization Meeting of the
Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential. May 1994, by
William P. Mueller Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors

Transient Electronic Auditory Stimulation

The Institutes have known for forty years that certain brain-injuries cause hyperactive auditory sensitivity.

In the past twenty years others have also begun to study this problem. I first beame aware of that condition when I met David, an eight year old brain-injured child at The Institutes who had this problem.

He screamed at the slightest noise. In fact, he screamed eight hours a day. His parents whispered all day to keep from setting him off.

When they arrived at The Institutes he was given the auditory stimulation program as part of his overall program. His parents were instructed to bang pots and pans randomly around the house!

David's mother told me she laughed all the way home after that initial visit. However, they did The Institute's auditory stimulation program and within two weeks David was no longer hypersensitive to sound.