Eye-Contact Game Using Mixed Reality for the Treatment of Children With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

Abstract

Many children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) perform poorly in their academic studies. They also have difficulties in their social lives due to a lack of interpersonal skills and this often continues into adult life. Appropriate early therapies and medications can be very beneficial. In this paper, we introduce and demonstrate the benefits of a new type of treatment, namely, an eye-contact game which successfully exploits mixed reality technology. None of the patients in our experiment were older than ten years of age. They were able to pay attention and sustain interest in the treatment sessions over a span of six weeks. After participating in the treatment sessions with our game, the omission/commission errors which were evaluated in an attention test taken by the experimental group decreased significantly and appeared within the normal range. In addition to the improvement in error rates, the mean response time to an interactive metronome test significantly decreased. Importantly, our game allows patients to conduct this treatment by themselves at home without professional assistance. To the best of our knowledge, this study is one of the first studies to use a mixed reality head-mounted display to treat children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and to prove its potential as a treatment for clinically diagnosed children.

Could virtual reality applications pose real risks to children and adolescents? A systematic review of ethical issues and concerns

“…The results revealed that other learners’ skills beyond demographics such as self-regulation, spatial cognition and mental rotation should be considered 20 Kaimara et al ( 2020a , b ) Research article * * The main objective focused on the correlation of the University students’ views that were sharing common characteristics, like gender, information and communication technology skills, game playing experience, and specific scientific background with factors that related to the gameplay as well as the learning effectiveness 21 Kenny and Gunter ( 2011 ) Research article * Video games are one of the fastest-growing elements of informal, virtual learning. In this article, the authors presented a design and evaluation rubric that appears to overcome many of the shortcomings in educational games currently on the market 22 Kim et al ( 2020 ) Research article * In this paper, the authors introduced and demonstrated the benefits of a new type of treatment, namely, an eye-contact game that successfully exploits mixed reality technology with head-mounted display. ADHD children, after participating in the treatment sessions, the omission/commission errors which were evaluated in an attention test decreased significantly 23 Koops et al ( 2016 ) Research article * * Computer games, based on physics simulations, have been utilized to provide an alternative learning tool.…”

“…The increased Internet use and media sources produce abnormal patterns of behaviour which may reflect symptoms similar to ADHD-like behaviours (Steve and Grubb 2018 ). Contrariwise, promising results were found early enough regarding the rehabilitation of inattention and impulsiveness through VR (Cho et al 2004 ; Kim et al 2020 ). Cho et al studied twenty-eight participants aged 14–18 years who had learning difficulties and presented inattentive, impulsive, hyperactive, and distracted behaviour without official ADHD diagnosis and found that participants were reducing the level of inattention and impulsiveness through the immersive VR interventions.…”

“…Cho et al studied twenty-eight participants aged 14–18 years who had learning difficulties and presented inattentive, impulsive, hyperactive, and distracted behaviour without official ADHD diagnosis and found that participants were reducing the level of inattention and impulsiveness through the immersive VR interventions. Recent results of research data conclude that cutting-edge technologies such as VR, augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), mobile devices, and VR games provide opportunities for ADHD children treatment by reducing their symptoms (Weerdmeester et al 2016 ; Wang and Yu 2018 ; Kim et al 2020 ). VR systems are also recommended as an assessment tool for selective and sustained attention (Nolin et al 2016 ).…”

“…Studies have focused on children with ADHD, as they are a population characterized by disorganization, and/or hyperactivity-impulsivity directly associated with limited attention and distraction. There is clear evidence that VRTs and video games can assist children to focus on the purpose of the designed intervention (Cho et al 2004 ; Blume et al 2017 ; Kim et al 2020 ).…”

Assessment of a Robotic Assistant for Supporting Homework Activities of Children With ADHD

“…Several studies which support ADHD treatments have been developed in recent years. For example [28] presents an eyecontact game that uses mixed reality for the treatment of children diagnosed with ADHD. This interactive game helps to significantly reduce the omission errors carried out when the children were evaluated by an attention test, instead of children who resolved the same attentional test without using this innovative game.…”