Researchers at The Kids Research Institute Australia and University of Western Australia have recently published data describing the use of an attention training game designed for school-aged children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD).
Children with a diagnosis of ASD sometimes may find it difficult to look at faces or understand what others may be thinking or feeling. This may be due to difficulties in visual attention that develop very early, within the first few years of life.
The researchers, led by Dr Gail Alvares, designed and evaluated a game that rewarded children for selecting pictures of faces and ignoring pictures of objects, like trains or clocks. Using a machine called an eye-tracker, children were measured on how they looked at faces and objects before and after playing the game.
After playing the game for fifteen minutes, children more frequently first looked at pictures of faces rather than objects, and this was compared to a group of children who played a similar version of the game without the rewarding training for faces.
These results may indicate that games could be used to help aspects of social skill development for children on the autism spectrum, such as understanding faces. It is not yet known whether these effects translate to real differences in social behaviour or how long any effects may last for.
As this research is still ongoing, the game is not available on any app or game store, however you can keep updated on this and other autism research at the autism research team's Facebook page.
