Welcome to Great Games for ADHD, LWK’s recurring digest featuring the best games for kids with ADHD / ADD.
Here, we highlight recent additions to our games section deemed particularly helpful for children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders — games that excel at exercising attention, memory, concentration and foresight.
Great Games for ADHD #1: Braid
- Braid helps foster careful attention to detail. The game mechanics revolves around manipulating time, tasking players with paying close attention to the way the flow of time changes the environment.
- Before acting, it is important for players to fully absorb the environment, taking note of the layout of the world, the placements of hazards,enemy locations and moving platforms.
- There is always a set goal to achieve, from finding a key to simply crossing a cliff, but the player frequently has to stay at it for extended periods of time before figuring out how to achieve it.
Great Games for ADHD #2: Gardens of Time
- Gardens of Time is a hidden object game — think of it as digital version of a Where’s Waldo? book — which by its very nature demands careful attention to detail.
- The game employs a time limit, further encouraging players to focus intently and find items fast.
- There are always numerous items to locate, so players have to know when and how to shift their focus from item to item as to not waste time.
- Players revisit locations several times, emphasizing memorization and the need to recall layouts and identify items quickly.
Great Games for ADHD #3: Kinect Adventures: Reflex Ridge and River Rush
- Kinect Adventures: River Rush and Kinect Adventure: Reflex Ridge are active, motion-based games, and as such, employ a great deal of movement and vigorous exersise, which studies have shown can change brain chemistry in a positive way that improves attention.
- The games teach players specific movements which are used to control the game. Players jump to dodge obstacles, duck to avoid bars and move left and right to steer a raft.
- During gameplay, players have to remember these movements and pay attention to on-screen visual cues to know when to perform them. This stretches their Working Memory, as they don’t only have to remember what each movement does, but also perform it.
- Players aren’t just focusing on the various visual signs, they are remembering what they mean, the action needed to react to it and how to perform said action.
- The numerous tracks offered in both games are quite long, and to improve their score players need to learn their layout, committing the tracks to memory as best they can in order to better navigate and anticipate obstacles.
