Children with serious anger
problems can be helped by a video game that helps them learn how to regulate
their emotions, according to a new study.
Noticing that children with anger
control problems are often uninterested in psychotherapy, but eager to
play video games, Jason Kahn, Ph.D., and Joseph Gonzalez-Heydrich, M.D., at
Boston Children’s Hospital developed “RAGE Control,” a video game with a
biofeedback component that helps children practice emotional control skills. The
game involves shooting at enemy spaceships while avoiding shooting at friendly
ones. As children play, a monitor on one finger tracks their heart rate and
displays it on the computer screen. When the heart rate goes above a certain
level, players lose their ability to shoot at the enemy spaceships.
To improve their game, they must
learn to keep calm, the researchers explain. “The connections between the
brain’s executive control centers and emotional centers are weak in people with
severe anger problems,” said Gonzalez-Heydrich, chief of Psychopharmacology at
Boston Children’s and senior investigator on the study. “However, to succeed at
RAGE Control, players have to learn to use these centers at the same time to
score points.”
The study, led by first author
Peter Ducharme, M.S.W., a clinical social worker at Boston Children’s, compared
two groups of 9- to 17-year-old children admitted to the hospital’s Psychiatry
Inpatient Service who had high levels of anger. To qualify for the study, the
children had to have a normal IQ and not need a medication change during the
five-day study period.
One group, with 19 children, received
standard treatments for anger, including cognitive-behavioral therapy, presentation of relaxation techniques and social skills training for
five consecutive business days. The second group, with 18 children, got these
same treatments, but spent the last 15 minutes of their psychotherapy session
playing RAGE Control. After five sessions, the gamers were significantly better
at keeping their heart rate down, the researchers report. They also showed
clinically significant decreases in anger scores on the State Trait Anger
Expression Inventory-Child and Adolescent (STAXI-CA). Specific decreases were
seen in the intensity of anger at a particular time, the frequency of angry
feelings over time, and the expression of anger towards others or objects. The
gamers also had a decrease in suppressed, internalized anger, according to the
researchers.
In contrast, the
standard-treatment group showed no significant change from baseline on any of
the above measures. The gamers gave their therapy experience high marks for
helpfulness (5 to 6 on a scale of 7), according to the researchers. “Kids
reported feeling better control of their emotions when encountering day-to-day
frustrations on the unit,” said Ducharme. “While this was a pilot study, and we
weren’t able to follow the kids after they were discharged, we think the game
will help them control their emotions in other environments.”
The scientists are now conducting
a randomized, controlled clinical trial of RAGE Control in the outpatient
clinic at Boston Children’s that adds a cooperative component. The children
team up with a parent for 10 game sessions at the clinic; if either the
parent’s or the child’s heart rate goes up, neither of them can shoot, forcing
them to help calm each other. The research team plans another clinical trial to
test whether letting children take RAGE Control home, to play with parents and
siblings, will increase its effect. The study was published in the journal Adolescent
Psychiatry.
Psych Central
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