Video Games and ADHD

A considerable amount of research has been done on kids and video games. There is a group of folks who believe that violent video games make kids more violent. The research is spotty in this regard but there is some concern for those of us with kids who have ADHD.



From some small studies that were done on boys with ADHD, there were findings of a greater risk for developing an addiction to video games and a risk of increased violent behavior if the games that were being played were violent. These studies need to be taken with a grain of salt as a mega analysis of all availble studies, completed in 2007 did not coroborate these results. These researchers concluded that video games actually helped visual spacial processing and caused absolutely no ill effect.

Inattentive kids are sometimes evaluated for visual processing issues. Teachers wonder if that whole 'spacing' out thing is related to vision. These disorders are usually evaluated by Occupational Therapist who then refer the kids to a Developmental Optometrist. The field of Developmental Optometry is considered to be pseudo-science by most Ophthomologist.

My inattentive son was diagnosed by a developmental Optomentrist as having a visual spacial processing problem and did eye exercises (which he hated) for a year to correct this problem. In the case of my son, the exercises helped his visual tracking and his handwriting. Needless to say, he would have MUCH preferred to have been playing video games. If only I had known.


I will blog on the debate regarding Developmental Optometry tomorrow.