Should I play or should I grow?

Posted by on March 15th, 2010 | Comments off

PART THREE OF THREE

Play Attention vs. commercial video games
It’s clear that games whether video, computer, board, etc. can teach. However, it’s also clear that chronic play of the most popular video game titles can be detrimental to an individual with ADHD.

As a parent or professional, it’s imperative that one asks:

  • Who are these games addressing?
  • What is the purpose of playing?
  • What is it that is being taught?
  • Do these games provide the 3 catalysts needed for brain growth –  attention, challenge, and deliberate practice?

Our concern is with students that have attentional challenges. That’s who we address with Play Attention.

The purpose of playing Play Attention’s games is to learn skills that students with attentional challenges often have yet to acquire. 

Play Attention is not entertainment. It is an instructional tool that teaches discriminatory processing, memory, motor skills, visual tracking, time on-task, and attention stamina. You might consider it edutainment. That’s a term coined to denote a combination of entertainment and education.

A behavior shaping module is built into Play Attention’s core. It’s there to mitigate or extinguish behavior like fidgeting, calling out, distractibility, etc.  Since we hold patents on the integration of cognitive skills with behavioral shaping, no one else can do what we do in one package.

I’m often asked why I didn’t structure Play Attention’s games like the intense entertainment that Xbox or Play Station games  offer (those names are trademarks of Microsoft and Sony Corp. respectively).  The most popular games produced for those systems are incredibly visually intense and graphically frenetic. If one has a true attention problem, a hallmark is one’s ability to pay attention to visually intense, graphically frenetic things. Commonly, ADHD individuals can be entertained by Xbox or Play Station games for hours on end never becoming disinterested or bored.

As an educator, I knew it was important to develop a game with a purpose. Each game in Play Attention is played for a purpose: to learn a skill. Every game provides the 3 catalysts necessary from brain growth. The mind is the mouse or joystick as the user’s mind (attention) controls the action. Active engagement is required to make the games work, and that’s challenging. True learning can occur because we implemented goals, feedback, and a deliberate learning model within our core.

So, when asked why I didn’t create Play Attention like Grand Theft Auto or Halo, I respond, “I don’t think it’s responsible to allow your child to play games that teach nothing, likely diminish function in the frontal lobes as research has demonstrated, and simply entertain with no purpose. I create games that challenge, teach, and provide success.”

When I hear parents complain, “Oh, he’ll get bored. I don’t know if I can get him to do it,” I know it’s a clear underestimation of their child’s capacity. All children get bored. When you hear, “Mom, I’m bored,” do you jump to your feet to entertain them? Do you whip out a DVD that you’ve squirreled away for just such a moment? You’d be surprised how many parents will just to keep from hearing their child’s moaning or complaining. That’s just poor parenting. Period.

Set the bar higher. If your child wants to be on the baseball team, he’ll practice for hours with the coach. If your child wants to be on the swim team, she’ll swim many, many laps. That’s boring, but they do it anyway. ADHD and all. Why? Because they see the benefit. It’s not fun to practice throwing to second base over and over again. Nor is it fun to swim laps, but they do it because they perceive the payoff to be bigger than themselves. And that’s your job as parent. Get them to see the bigger picture. Do they want better grades, more friends, more success? That’s what we’re offering. It’s a truly happy medium between entertainment and learning.

I once told my mother I was bored. I was 6 years old. She barely looked up from her book and said, “Go outside and play.”

I said, “That’s boring.”

She said, “Use you mind, Peter. It’s a good mind. Find something to do with it.”

She was right. I haven’t been bored in 45 years. I learned to play and grow.

Should I play or should I grow?

Posted by on March 1st, 2010 | Comments off

PART TWO OF THREE

Entertainment vs. learning
Entertainment is usually a passive act that includes an activity which provides a distraction to everyday events or provides amusement. A good example of entertainment is watching a movie or concert. However, one may also actively participate in recreational entertainment  such as playing video games or sports. One does not participate in an entertaining activity to be educated. That is far from the goal of entertainment. In fact, we participate in entertainment to be relieved of having to work, having to learn, or having to be actively engaged for those purposes. We seek entertainment for fun and pleasure.

Entertainment is a vast industry. The modern American video game industry made about $18.85 billion on video-game hardware, software, and accessories in 2007. That’s nearly twice what movie theaters made and triple what the video game industry made in 2000. Most authorities on video games estimate that 70 to 80 percent of boys and approximately 20 percent of girls play video games daily.

Learning is on the other end of the spectrum from entertainment. In order to learn, we need attention, challenge, and deliberate practice. We need to be actively engaged. To apply the mind with the intent of long-term retention, assimilation, and application of new information. This implies both effort and commitment. While we may employ some of these elements, the purpose is far different in a learning environment. The purpose of learning in Star Trek: Bridge Commander is to keep the ship from exploding by using the controls correctly.  Learning is there to benefit your game play.  While this takes some reasoning and trial and error, is this useful in the classroom or at the office? Not likely. It’s not likely transferrable or to generalize either unless your child’s job is commanding Star Fleet.

If I may paraphrase the late martial artist and film legend Bruce Lee, you cannot learn to swim by kicking your legs and stroking with your arms on land. You have to jump in the water. You cannot learn to run a marathon by jogging around the track. 

In other words, if we want to learn something, it has to be taught with a purpose or aim, and we have to practice it deliberately to improve. If we closely examine what video games our spouse, child, or clients are playing, then we might just be alarmed at the violence, the lack of humanity, and gratuitous sex involved.

The most popular video games are those that are visually intense and graphically frenetic. It’s important to mention here that paying attention to visually stimulating and frenetic activity is another hallmark of an ADHD individual. Offer a 3-ring circus and their brain is quite capable of attending to it. Ask them to clean their room, a much less stimulating activity, and it’s very difficult. This predisposition towards highly stimulating activities seems to involve the brain’s reward and gratification systems as well as its processing and other regulatory systems.

Thus, a high stimulation Xbox or Play Station game is quite satisfying; ADHD individuals can hyperfocus on these games for hours on end. What does that teach? Research tells us that people who play these games do learn visual recognition skills, i.e. they can rapidly determine the number of opposing characters on screen far faster than the average human being. So, if the only thing they’re going to be is a fighter pilot, then these games might be suitable.

Other research tells us that if one chronically plays these games (chronically would be classified as one hour or more per day), one is more likely to report lower grades at school, diminished attention at school, and a greater probability of being addicted to these games or the Internet itself. Good Japanese research also noted that entertaining, highly stimulating video games that involve little else than pointing and shooting can lower both the metabolic rate and EEG in the frontal lobes of the brain. The frontal lobes, among other capacities, govern attention, aggression, and impulsivity. This is important to know especially if you have an ADHD person in your household using these games.

It seems that most ADHD children and adults are prewired to pay attention to overly stimulation things. That seems to be a hallmark of the trait. They frequently become hyperfocused on them for hours at a time. Taking these games away is probably not practical. However, limiting play time is quite sensible.

If one is to learn skills, techniques, or methods that will strengthen the brain, then the video game must be quite different than the Xbox or Play Station most popular list.

Upcoming, part 3, Play Attention vs. off the shelf video games.