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Videogames Used to Treat ADHD
deeptrace writes "USA today has an article about a videogame based treatment for ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). It uses NASA derived technology to measure brainwave activity while playing videogames. Clinical psychologist Henry Owens says 'If they just play videogames on their own, they will zone out. When they play on this system, if they zone out [as detected by brainwave activity], the videogame doesn't respond any more' This is supposed to help the patient increase the ability to focus and concentrate."
That's perfect for
Mabey this will shut up the videogame= hyperactive folks.
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
How about encouraging the "patient" to go outside or do something constructive, instead of coercing him into repeating a mindless task for no real reward. Oh, right - because that's what he would have done ANYWAY if he weren't one of the majority who by about age six are infected with an affinity for pointless busywork, and an inability to learn except by rote.
I have no objection to psychotropic drugs and behavioral treatments when used judiciously to relieve real suffering or addiction. But using these tools to homogenize children to the societal norm is absolutely repugnant. How we can get through to these deranged teachers, parents, and psychiatrists?
Zoning out is a symptom of ADHD? Dang. I think I need see my doctor.
The potential is huge for training in this field. Maybe good - maybe bad. stay alert, of course, but what singing instructor wouldn't be a little nervous about the new sing sing revolution game that's on X-Box, et al. I saw it 'cause a friends son was very excited to have it and asked if i'd like to play a round.
Anything once, right? (except uh, cyanide and hand-grenades, but i digress)
So what is really neat? As you sing, it shows you a little bar that reveals your fundamental tone (singing pitch) and updates in real-time to get you on key better. Now, i know that's a simple FFT thing (wanna do it your self? go look up csound!) But what is important is that it is an EXCELLENT device to train one to sing. This sort of neural feedback (hey - it's a game - it got crowds yelling approval when you're good, not if your not) is one of the most powerful available, and worthy of philosophical discussion (says I..)
How come not a single technological drop of education tech makes it in the schools. Okay - some parents still probably remember max headroom... but if we acknowledge that neuro feedback is extremely powerful for learning, then we can both use it when it is good for schools and training, and be able to recoginize the "bad stuff" that much better.
Like every single thing on the TV i don't have. Brainwashing is best when served slowly, don' cha' know.
Lawrence Person (lawrencepersonh@gmailh.com (remove all "h"s to mail)
http://www.lawrenceperson.com/
... as this kid testifies? :-)
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
It's definitely both.
There are people who honestly have a neurological imbalance that causes them to have difficulty completing tasks, and in these cases drugs like Ritalin are a godsend, allowing them to normalize their routines. I know one or two people who have that, and without their medicine, they can make a ferret look like the paragon of focus and concentration.
On the other hand, ADD and ADHD make for a wonderful scapegoat for when children are acting up. Bright children being bored out of their skull in class? Must be ADD. I know from personal experience on this one - when I was a kid I was misdiagnosed with it, and I thank God that I had parents who knew enough to ask for a second opinion. It turned out that I was bored in class and reacting to food additives. Once I got into a gifted program in school and I stopped eating food I was reacting to, I settled right down.
It really does drive me nuts. Back in the 1980s when I was misdiagnosed, the misdiagnosis happened because ADD was "fashionable." Now it's an excuse. Pump kids full of sugar and chemicals and of course they're going to be hyperactive. Make them sit still in a classroom doing boring things and of course they're going to get restless. I just wish more medical professionals would rule out the obvious causes first before doping the kids up for having AD(H)D that they might not actually have.
Robert B. Marks
Author, Demonsbane in Diablo Archive
The funny thing is, he's actually playing solitaire.
The third most important thing I have learned in life: Squeeze anything hard enough and it eventually makes a noise.
This is really starting to piss me off. Why is it that we must label everything that is not perfectly matched to our current society's customs as a disorder? I am ADHD. The main feature of ADHD is a different brain structure where the gap between neurons is larger (which is why only the strongest chemicals, i.e. the most impulsive chemicals, get through most of the time and why stimulants like Ritalin actually seem to calm someone wiht ADHD down). As such the brain of one with ADHD is does not think in the way that most people think. But that does not make us any worse than avg. Joe. It is not a disorder, but an evolution in the human brain. While it is harder for those with ADHD to stay focused in many environments put in front of us today, we have the uncanny abilities to: 1) be able to notice many different facets of our environment in a very short span of time and 2) we can hyperfocus. Hyperfocus is the concentration on a subject so intense that the rest of the world completely fades out (many programmers, such as myself, know what I am talking about). From TFA, it seems that scientists are trying to "cure" this "disorder". But why? How about focusing an creating teaching environments where people with ADHD can thrive and harness th advatanges ADHD gives them while minimizing its disadvantages? It has been said that some of the greatest forththright thinkers and creative minds of out time have had ADHD. Albert Einstein is theorized to have had the disorder. Also, the owner of Kinkos has ADHD and Dyslexia. It is not a disease, but a change. I hope someday the scientific community will realize that.
I find that although many people are liberal in beliefs, they are conservative in actions.
The current focus is teaching children and adults to modify their behavior. We should be teaching them how to adapt their lifestyle to meet their cognitive needs while itegrating into society. Being married to and having a child both with the "disorder" (I hate to call it that.), is very frustrating. Sometimes I wish their were a magic pill that would make them normal. But then I would miss out on the wonderful things that a person who thinks "alternativly" has to offer. Our life is exciting most of the time.
By adapting your lifestyle, not training the person to be something else, you can maintain a level of creativity. Case in point, ADD people can forget menial tasks. More than once our lights and water were turned off becasue my husband forgot to put the chack in the mail. Easy solution, I set up everything to be paid online twice a month. More than once he has forgot our aniversay, but the surprise vacations in the middle of the year make up for it.
What I am trying to say is that I would rather be married to unpredictable, creative man than a man who has lost all personality from taking medications. The same is true for our child.
There could be many reasons why it is "unknown". But before you explore that, perhaps you mgiht want to state your evidence that it is even unknown. Personally, if I have never heard of any Thailand music artists before, I am not necessarily going to assume that Thailand does not have music artists.
I find that although many people are liberal in beliefs, they are conservative in actions.
This article doesn't mention how this can relate to what is known as "hyper-focusing." Maybe this is what they mean by "zoning out" since the medical information is scarce, but there is a phenomenon observed in ADHD sufferers that shows while playing video games (and some other activities) they focus to the exclusion of all other stimuli, often for extended periods of time. I'm not sure if this is the same thing or a seperate symptom than "zoning out" but it might be worth looking into a bit more.
Poor Spyro...
The patient should be taken to a society that tolerates no such behavior. In these societies, such behavior is met with punishment. Over time, the so called ADHD is made to get extinct.
Actually, physical punishment, or aggression of any kind, exacerbates ADHD to a large degree. Every wonder why hyper kids who are beaten stay hyper?
May the Maths Be with you!
Has anyone asked themselves why ADHD and other disorders are unknown in the Arab or [black] African worlds?
Perhaps because they refer to not conforming to a social norm as not conforming to a social norm, and not as a disease?
...NASA technology ! That must be good right ? Just like the:
NASA mattresses
NASA Chiropractors
NASA food
NASA Anthrax detectors
NASA Waterheaters
NASA shine
NASA golf clubs
etc. etc. etc....
Heck, just write NASA in front of your name and your all of a sudden a brilliant, top performing (name your profession here).
NASA thrill12 (uses NASA technology).
Slashdot: stuff for news, nerds that matter, matter for news, stuff that nerd
This seems like an ok idea for helping children develop longer attention spans. It will probably be effective in those kids who are diagnosed ADHD for simply being normal children.
A lot of children are now being diagnosed ADHD simply for doing what children do. Namely running around, being active, jumping from one interest to another, etc. Children (under 10) do not have the same brain activity as an adult, and it is unreasonable to expect them to behave as adults do. Parents seem to not want their children to act like children, and are turning to chemicals to make them be what they want them to be. Children who are diagnosed ADHD, when if fact they are just normal kids, will eventually settle down as the brain develops.
For children who actually are ADD, the attention span problem does not go away with time. They will struggle their entire lives with tasks most adults have no problems with. For them, these excercizes will do nothing but frustrate, as their brains do not have the capacity for developing longer attention spans.
There are children who are put into classes now that are supposed to extend attention spans, and this is another example of that theory. It is useful, however, only in children who have the ability to develop normally, not in the true cases of ADD.
I have ADHD. You are wrong. Allow me to help you understand. The mistake you make, which is a common misconception, is that ADHD is actually a deficit of attention. That's not exactly correct. ADHD is more like an inability to control and regulate your attention. Most people with ADHD have the ability to hyperfocus. That is, when you will focus on something to the point of being unable to focus on anything else. Unfortunately, this isn't something ADHD can trigger at will. As I said, ADHD is the inability to control attention.
There is quite a bit more to ADHD than just short attention spans. It has many other far-reaching effects beyond the stereotypical loopy behavior most people think of, such as persistant problems with time management, task prioritization, motivation, and other executive brain functions.
Sugar and caffine are not the causes of ADHD. (In fact, before methyphenidate, caffine was used as a treatment for ADHD). Dietary treatments for ADHD have had mixed results at best. Medication for ADHD is not a cure, by any stretch of the mind, but it can dramaticaly help. Please do not dismiss something just because of what you have heard on TV. Just a little bit of research would teach you a lot, I think.
Why is it so hard to understand that people are different?
ADHD is a name we put on a combination of attributes common in some portion of the population which gives them specifically different ways of processing information. I am one of them.
It is not a disease, nor is it "made up to sell drugs".
Its a difference in what the brain considers INTERESTING or IMPORTANT.
Some people are "wired" to notice things like movement, change, differences, instantly. They're hyper-aware of these things. It prevents them from ignoring those things they someone who is wired more toward the opposite end of the spectrum.
Want to know what it is like?
Telling a child who happens to think this way that has been placed in a busy classroom with big windows that she shouldn't look at the bird landing on the branch outside is like telling you not to blink execpt once every 20 seconds, exactly on the 20 second mark. You have control over your blinking right? Assuming you were told it was REALLY important that you not blink -- that you would be in TROUBLE and LOOSE RECESS if you fail -- you could control EXACTLY when you blink. As long as you remembered to CONCENTRATE on that 20 seconds you could do it. After about a minute, it would become extremely onerous to keep up. After as little as two minutes, you would become angry at anyone who started talking to you because it would make your job harder. With practice, you could get the timing right -- as long as something didn't interrupt you. You would become very irritable, probably frustrated and depressed as well. If you found that drugs helped you, you would take them.
That, exactly, is what school can be like for someone who's brain works in a way we classify as ADHD.
ADHD is NOT an inability to pay attention. It is a very big difference in what the brain considers important and interesting. The classic reference is hunter/farmer in developing societies. A farmer needs to be able to ignore the woods, the sounds, the noises, and plant his crops for weeks at a time. Routine, hard work day after day. The hunter needs to be automatically aware of EVERYTHING without having to look. When something is spotted, the hunter has to just REACT without thought and take action. The skills each have are valuable -- and would cause each to fail at the job of the other.
So, kids who have genetic tendancies toward this kind of brain focus, are poorly suited to sitting in classrooms and learning. Its not how they (we) learn. Your making a hunter into a farmer and it doesn't fit. So, here's the real deal on what happens to kids who are not treated as they are being forced into a role they are ill suited to:
A high incidence of failure in school, as well as a high incidence of drug addiction, early pregnancy, criminality, risk taking, depression, and violence. Why? It is INCREDIBLY frustrating. Drugs HELP. Why? Damn if I know why drugs that that would hype you out the to moon, calm me down and let me get started. Its a brain chemistry thing. Nicotine works too -- but not as well. Caffine works -- poorly -- if you take enough of it. High grade speed works perfectly. Its best, however, if you have perspription for it in one form or another. If you like, I can describe the differences in detail between the various sorts.
As to video games, sports, etc.. -- ALL THOSE THINGS that require a lot of focus? Guess what? HYPER-FOCUS is another KEY indicator of this syndrome. You see, the brain in this case is fined tuned to notice things QUICKLY and constantly until it finds something that it considers important. Typically, these are activities that require intense concentration and focus to the exclusion of all else. Again, the common metaphor is hunting. Once that rabbit pops out the bushes, the hunter will give chase and will run headlong through brambles, jumping logs, wherever the rabbit goes. Its hyper-focus.
Sometimes, its called emerency focus.
Where do you find the adults who's brains wo
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
I too was diagnosed with ADHD as a child. My parents had the same knee-jerk reaction as yours: it's the drug companies cooking up a "disorder" that describes normal childhood behavior, then selling the "cure".
However, it turns out that there actually WAS something different about the way my brain was working. So my academic life was a nonstop trail of failure all the way through 5th grade, when my mom (the voice of reason) convinced my father to stop expecting me to "buckle down" and let me actually get the ritalin prescription.
Well what the hell do you know? The next grading period I was on the damn honor roll. The ritalin didn't make me smart, it gave me the tool I needed so that all my other efforts would be fruitful: the ability to really concentrate.
I had a good doctor and over a period of years she reduced the dosage gradually, so that I was able to "train my brain" to concentrate on it's own without the artificial chemical.
ADD Medications are not "mere sedatives", and you sir are full of the rottenest kind of horse malarkey to suggest that they aren't doing anyone any real good.
They call it "science", sir, because it's based on facts.