What characterizes a video game designed to help kids with mental health issues? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Just how does a video game designed to help kids with ADHD, depression and anxiety differ from other video games? Barry Bryant, a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins, recently completed a study looking at such games and has some observations.

Bryant: A lot of the ADHD games looked fun. They were racing games, they were games where you would go around and select certain things but not other things working on attention. For the depression and anxiety games those ones often incorporated therapeutic principles into a game format. So learning therapy skills whether it was breathing, whether it was pushing back against negative thoughts, whether it was rescripting emotional regulation, emotional awareness, those were often done in a game format.    :31

Bryant says the video games for ADHD appeared to be most helpful while those for anxiety were less so, but says all would likely be worthwhile in conjunction with therapy for these conditions. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.