Parameters for Video Games for the Treatment of Mental Illness in Children

Children from dysfunctional families often exhibit behavioural and emotional disorders which have long term consequences such as mental illness. As well as direct physical abuse children may experience neglect and such things as the use of television and computer games as child care substitutes. The games played by these children are often of an age rating far above their own. Adults from dysfunctional backgrounds and children from "normal" backgrounds have been shown to have been adversely affected by exposure to violent computer games. How much more damage can be done to these more vulnerable children? As repeated exposure to negative behaviour patterns through role playing computer games can have such a significantly bad effect on children with behaviour disorders, can role play games using good models of behaviour be designed to produce a positive effect on these children? Such games need to use existing principles of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) or some other treatment method. Modelling is a common theme of CBT and social learning. Any intervention to treat conduct disorder must use social learning. In these approaches clients are presented with models of proper behaviour and appropriate communication between individuals and groups. Tools for this modelling commonly involve such things as work books, board games and discovery groups of many kinds. However, many of these methods do not easily motivate children. In particular they lack the motivation for homework based around these materials. A lot of work sheets need them to engage in activities they find boring or difficult (because of lack of literacy). Games offer the potential for engagement and motivation that many other methods now lack. This paper reports on progress in the design of a computer game based on CBT principles to treat mental illness in children. In addition to ethnographic study and experiments described previously analysis of the current content of standard CBT treatments has been used to derive the fundamental principles needed in the game. A wide range of current games and work books have been analysed. In addition to this other computer based tools (both for adults and children) have been studied to derive the principles needed for the game. The pilot of the game is being tested and evaluated by health professionals. The game is based around a set of narratives derived from everyday life. In the game images are used to convey the setting. In any narrative there is a central theme that defines the overall fundamental game play which revolves around the idea that thinking feeling, body signals and behaviour are linked and cannot be disconnected from each other. In addition secondary ideas derive from the main theme.