Playing computer games may not always slacken kids’ performance at school, for a new study has found that children who play computer games before going off to school get better grades than those who don’t play such games.

In the study conducted at the St Columba's Primary in Dundee, a group of Primary 5 and 6 pupils played for 20 minutes on Nintendo's handheld DS console at the start of each day which showed ‘dramatic’ advancements in the classroom after gaming for 20 minutes before the lessons began.

The game, called ‘More Brain Training from Dr Kawashima’ features number challenges, reading tests, problem-solving exercises and memory puzzles.

The tasks are designed to ‘exercise the brain’ by increasing blood for to the pre-frontal cortex.

Ten weeks later the group was given a maths test with the results showing a ten per cent average increase compared to those taken before the experiment.

Additionally, the average time for completion of the test dropped from 17 minutes, 1 second to 13 minutes, 19 seconds.

Some of the children even halved the time it took them while maintaining or improving upon their score.

Another group was given the existing educational movement based programme, Brain Gym, during the same experimental period.

The analyses of this particular group found that these children also achieved better results but not to the extent of the Nintendo group.

Along with the children's test scores improving, notable progress was also made in their behaviour and concentration.

Derek Robertson, Learning and Teaching Scotland's development officer, has backed the role of computer games in improving kids' classroom performance.

"There was dramatic enhancement in their mental maths ability in such a short period of time. It also seemed to have a settling effect on the children,” the Daily Mail quoted him, as saying.

Source-ANI
SRM/V