Video games are blamed for a lot of things these days, and are often cited as the cause of school shootings, violence, and crime, so it’s nice to be able to report for once on something positive a game is doing for society.

Dr Kawashima’s More Brain Training is a game for the Nintendo DS in which the players fight their way through a series of mini gmes, puzzles and challenges in an attempt to improve their brain power.

The game is based on work done by Japanese neuroscientist Dr. Ryuta Kawashima but has been turned in to a game for all ages by Nintendo for their handheld DS console.

Now there is some real evidence of the claims that the game can actually give your brain a workout and improve maths and concentration skills, especially in children.

The BBC is reporting that 30 children from the St Columba’s primary school in Dundee, Scotland were given the game to use as a before and after experiment by LTS (Learning and Teaching Scotland). Each morning for 10 weeks, the group of nine and ten year olds played Brain Training on the DS for fifteen minutes before lessons began.

Their mental progress was compared to a similar group of children from a different school who used the Brain Gym method, a series of body exercises designed to enhance learning, and a control group who used neither of the methods.

Each group of children sat a maths test before and after the 10 week project, and although all of the groups showed an increase in score, the biggest was amongst the kids who had been using the Nintendo DS game.

Derek Robertson from LTS was ecstatic with the marked improvement saying:

“The results of this small-scale Dr Kawashima project have shown how a targeted and managed use of such a game can help to enhance pupil numeracy skills and classroom behaviour.”

The organisation now hope to carry out a broader study early next year, and if the results are similar, the game could be used all across Dundee as an educational resource.

So we could be seeing Brain Training on the national curriculum soon, and what better way is there to get kids interested in learning and improving their brain powers than using games consoles which most use anyway?

I wonder if the day will ever arrive when Grand Theft Auto and Manhunt make it in to classrooms?

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Entry was posted on Sunday, October 28th, 2007 at 4:07 pm under Technology.

Read more entries by Dave Parrack.
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