Video games teach balance, reduce symptoms in autistic adolescents
Video games teach balance, reduce symptoms in autistic adolescents
Video games teach balance, reduce symptoms in autistic adolescents
January 10, 2022
By Charlene N. Rivera-Bonet
Summary
While balance training may not necessarily sound fun to most adolescents, video games typically do.
For adolescents with autism spectrum disorder, video games that improve their balance by teaching them yoga and tai chi poses also improve their posture, reduce the severity of their autism symptoms, and influence the structure of their brains.
"So many adolescents love video games, right? And there's been research in autistic youth to show that there's even more interest in video games sometimes," says graduate student Olivia Surgent, first author of the study.
Off the balance board, the adolescents also showed improvement in postural sway, or their ability to maintain posture, indicating that the benefits of the training extended outside of the video game context.
Autistic adolescents who did the balance training also reported significant decreases in autism symptom severity in areas of social communication, repetitive behavior, and restricted interests - or strong interest in specific topics or objects.
"Autism symptom severity unto itself may be a measure that, while interesting to the research community, may not be that meaningful to the autistic community," says Travers, since for adolescents with autism, some symptoms such as stimming - or repetitive movements - may help them feel better.
She also hopes to identify outcomes of balance training that will be meaningful to autistic adolescents and further study how to use video games to both help with motor control and contribute to their quality of life.
Reference
Rivera-Bonet, C. N. (2022, January 10). Video games teach balance, reduce symptoms in autistic adolescents. Retrieved February 15, 2022, from https://education.wisc.edu/news/video-games-teach-balance-reduce-symptoms-in-autistic-adolescents/