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.

Australian Children Mis-diagnosed as Lazy, suffer from Learning Difficulties

A new research study from Australia claims that children labelled as lazy by teachers and parents may be suffering from numerous learning difficulties, which could underlie their apparent lack of motivation.

Linda Gilmore, educational psychologist from Queensland University of Technology (QUT), studied children aged seven to 10 years who were regarded as lazy by their parents and teachers.

Learning Difficulties
They also found that three-quarters of the children had phonologically-based learning disabilities and/or significant problems with attention.

"Reports by teachers that children 'need to try harder' or 'make more effort' and 'apply themselves more' often convey the stigma of laziness to children and their parents," Gilmore said.

"Parents in the study reported their children seemed to have little interest in school, often failed to complete work and gave up very easily," she said.

Homework is a big issue
"For some children only one learning area was a problem, such as mathematics or reading but homework was a major issue for many families who reported pleading, nagging and pushing their child 'every step of the way'," she added.

Standardised TestingThe children completed two standardised tests to provide diagnostic information about their cognitive and academic strengths and weaknesses, and basic reading, spelling, reading comprehension, writing and mathematics.

Depending on results of these two measures and the type of difficulties described by parents and teachers, the children were then assessed on more specific areas to pinpoint their particular problems.

Attention deficit and Hyperactivity
"Half of the children were found to have clinical signs of inattention and/or hyperactivity, others were found to have anxiety issues, visual perceptual or fine motor problems, and eight children had clear signs of dyslexia," Gilmore said.

She said these unrecognised difficulties could have led the children to withdraw from learning experiences and appear lazy.

Summary"These sorts of problems influence a child's ability to learn effectively and their capacity to function appropriately within the classroom," she said, according to a QUT release.

"Early diagnosis of such learning problems is essential to prevent children from experiencing multiple failures that undermine their feelings of competence and self-esteem," Gilmore concluded.