Effects of E-games on the development of saudi children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder cognitively, behaviourally and socially: An experimental study

Abstract

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a set of behavioural characteristics disorder, such as inattentiveness, hyperactivity and/or impulsiveness. It can affect people with different intelligent abilities, and it may affect their academic performance, social skills and generally, their lives. Usually, symptoms are not clearly recognized until the child enters school, most cases are identified between the ages 6 to 12. In the kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), ADHD is a widely spread disorder among young children. Usually, they suffer from distraction and lack of focus, and hyperactivity, which reduce their academic achievements. As technology have been used in classrooms to facilitate the information delivery for students, and to make learning fun; some of these technologies have actually been applied in many schools in KSA with normal students, but unfortunately no studies were reported by the time of writing this paper. Specifically, there are no studies done for using any type of technology to help Saudi students with ADHD reaching up their peers academically. Because of that, our focus in this study is to investigate the effect of using technology, particularly e-games, to improve Saudi children with ADHD cognitively, behaviourally and socially. As well as evaluating the interaction between those children with the game interface. Thus, the investigation done through exploring the interaction of web-based games that runs on Tablets. The respondents are 17 ADHD children aged from 6–12 in classroom settings. The study involves focussing on interface of the games stimulate different executive functions in the brain, which is responsible for the most important cognitive capacities, such as: Sustained Attention, Working Memory, and Speed of Processing. Ethnographic method of research was used, which involved observing students’ behaviour in classroom, to gather information and feedback about their interaction with the application. National Institutes of Health (NIH) tests were used in pre- and post- intervention to measure improvements in attention, processing speed and working memory. Students’ test scores of main school subjects were taken pre- and post-intervention to measure enhancement in academic performance. Results show that using the application significantly improve cognitive capacities for participants, which affected their academic grades in Math, English and Science, as well as its positive influence on their behaviour. In addition, the application’s interface was found easy to use and subjectively pleasing. As a conclusion, the application considered effective and usable.