Essay on Eagle-Eyed Traveler and children with ADHD

Purpose: learning game for ADHD children aimed at improving concentration abilities and focusing attention on the details

Date: 3/30/2013
Contents

Project description
Topic: learning game for ADHD children aimed at improving concentration abilities and focusing attention on the details
The name of the project: “Eagle-eyed traveler”

Targeted audience: parents of children with ADHD, preschool and elementary school teachers of children with special needs
This project is a game with original design targeted for parents and teachers dealing with ADHD children. These children have problems with concentration, and experience difficulties at school and in their everyday life. Addressing ADHD from the very childhood through games and attractive learning materials will help these children to become more successful in the society, and will make the learning process easy and joyful.

The game includes a board with two picturesque paths (with step-by-step path) drawn on the surface of the board, and 100 double-sided cards, with artwork, comic drawings and funny photos drawn on one side, and six questions for every picture printed on the back side. The board also has various bonuses and transition effects added for greater fascination. At each step, the kids randomly draw a card, look at it during 30 seconds, and then answer questions about the card. The number of correct answers allows them to move forward along the path to the treasure, located in the centre of the board. The game can be played by one or two kids, or in teams. The cards are planned to come in three different packages: for children of 4-6 years old, 6-8 years old, and 8-10 years old, with different level of details in pictures and different content adjusted for particular ages. The difficulty of the questions will be also adjusted to the age of the children. This game can be used at home or at school for helping children notice the details and focus their attention.
Background and evidence

Overall, there are about 5.3 million of children with ADHD in the US, which is 8.6% of total number of children. For 50% of these children, their problems persist into adulthood. ADHD children commonly experience troubles getting through everyday tasks because they have impairments of memory, concentration and impulse control. There are many games aimed at helping ADHD children to improve their memory and attention, but most of them are computer software, and research shows that spending more than 1 hour per day playing video games may be destructive for ADHD kids. Medical treatment, in its turn, addresses only several of the problems for ADHD kids, but for most of them the troubles with attention remain. Our project does not increase the kids’ exposal to the computer, but offers a creative and flexible game environment. This game should be a valuable part of the complex of measuring for treating ADHD.



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