Slashdot Mirror
Computer Game Improves Children's Hearing
wiredbeat2000 writes "The BBC is running a story that claims children who play video games increase their hearing skills. There have been several studies over the last few months extolling the virtues of games and education. For example, Wired News ran a roundup of college programs, and USA Today published a recent story on Daphne Bavelier's findings that playing games could help children develop hand-eye coordination, in addition to Professor James Gee's Slashdot-covered video transcript and article on 'games that teach'." Things have come a long way since the time when schoolkids were dumped in front of a computer and left to play Oregon Trail.
Nevertheless, it is refreshing to see video games recieving positive media. And despite this, games such as Grand Theft Auto will forever serve as targets for the anti-game pundits.
Now excuse me while I look up secrets to the new Mario Golf game. I love video games that neither benefit nor harm you in any measurable way, only aim to entertain. This is why I hope Nintendo is still around when I have kids. I would much rather have my daughter playing "Animal Crossing 4: Happy Fun Land" than busting caps into pilots heads in "Grand Theft Aero 2: Jumbojet Bane".
... video games and computer games have done nothing to improve my hearing. In fact, they helped me to tune out my mother's nagging effectively as a child. Did it help to make selective hearing better?
Whatever.
The point is, my learning (or desire for learning) never really stopped. I soon became a daily slashdot reader, and I wait for where my hunger for knowledge will take me next. I know this is perhaps not usal for many kids, but that's my story.
Hardly surprising. All children learn through play. When you make trial and error fun it's called play.
All animals are the same. Take a look at a kitten playing with a ball. They didn't evolve to please humans for being cute. That's a learned hunting skill.
That's one of the reasons why we have a pleasure sense. It propels us to learn and helps us survive.
In my youth it was pinball machines. It taught you eye, hand, and *hip* coordination. Only blind, deaf and dumb pinball wizards remain totally motionless. It was always eyes first, hands respond on the flipper button, and then the hips would move in the requisite motion. I say hips, but what I really mean is your butt.
It was a lot of fun taking turns playing pinball with members of the other sex. Especially, if you stood behind them watching their playing motion.
Now let me tell you about foosball...
If you couldn't hear the dog disappearing into the bush ahead of you, the slithering of a snake on the left, and keep a bearing on the bellowing livestock you were fscked!
I feel this is more of a function of the cotton-wool swaddled worlds our children grow up in. We are overprotective by default, treated as social pariahs by other parents for not being over-protective, and you end up with a child who is illprepared for the modern world and the mental alertness and acuity required to survive in it.
That said - this does sound like an exemplary way to help "children with language problems". But lets not extrapolate too far, I don't believe this will substantially help an already active and alert child to rapidly develop their auditory acuity. Sure it will help, but so would learning an instrument (timbre, tone, timing, repetition, pattern recognition - try and write a program with the flexibility of a recorder).
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The big issue with cochlear implant surgery is when to get it.
At my age right now, it won't bring any additional benefits over hearing aids. I've worn hearing aids for almost my whole life that it's become natural for me to wear them. I'm used to hearing the sounds of the world through those digital ears and I'm doing just fine.
Cochlear implants have their biggest impacts at an early age, preferably before age 5. The key is being able to allow the child to hear some sounds before the language center of the brain stops its rapid development. The earlier the surgery, the better chance that the child will be able to have normal language development.
With that said, I wouldn't want one. I see no need to and I'm just fine with my hearing aids. It's likely that if I have deaf children, they too will not have cochlear implants.
I recommend you watch Sound and Fury, a PBS documentary about cochlear implants. It's a very well made documentary, presenting both sides of the debate with about as fair as one can get. It's a very moving piece.
-Cyc
/.'s 10 Millionth
I like how this has weight because it's a 'study'... like duh, already... video games present a complex system, and those playing them have to learn how to interact with the game to achieve the goals. There are all kinds of positive gains to playing video games, and even more support for their validity in light of the closest competitor, television. I'd much rather have my kids interacting than becoming stewed meat on a bed of couch.
That being said, it should be obvious to most that video games can be very addictive, and can lead to many negative influences on one's life. You can become just as much of a couch potato as you would watching television. Repetitive stress injury is another concern. So is *becoming a hermit*!!
So... there's a middle ground as with most issues... Gaming shouldn't be dismissed as a waste of time. By the same token, they shouldn't be abused.
I remember a game for the Commodore PET - I think it was called 'Fur Trader' or something like that - you had to navigate rivers and drop off furs in various ports in the Canadian North, which was represented by those line & sqiggle graphics on a green/black screen. I remember learning about canoes and portages, and all of the small Northern outposts from the game like Fort Saskatchewan, Rocky Mtn. House, etc.