Inattentive Type Adhd, Video Games And Visual Attention

By Tess Messer

Inattentive ADD and visual attention problems go hand and hand. People with the Inattentive type of ADHD can have significant visual attention deficits as well. A new study published in the Journal of Clinic Child and Adolescent Psychology found that people with ADHD-PI had an attenuated or slower attentional blink when they were compared with controls or Combined type ADHD participants.

People with Inattentive type ADHD do not have the hyperactivity or the impulsive symptoms that are seen in people with the combined or the Hyperactive/Impulsive type of ADHD. Inattentive type ADHD is categorized by the symptoms of inattention, easy distractibility, disorganization, procrastination and forgetfulness. While all the ADHD subtypes can have sensory processing problems, visual attention problems are common in children and adults with Inattentive type ADHD.

Attentional blink is a visual attention phenomenon that describes what you can see in a fast changing visual environment. If objects are presented visually one right after the other, you may see the first and miss the second because of the phenomena known as attentional blink. Attentional blink, to a certain extent, is just a measure of how quickly your visual processing recovers after being presented with a stimulus. What the recent study found was not surprise. People with Inattentive ADHD recover more slowly.

Attentional blink and another visual phenomenon known as subitizing (a term that describes the number of objects that you can visually perceive without counting them) are good measures of the capacity of a person’s visual attention or visual processing abilities.

Visual attention and the ADHD inattention can be improved. Two researchers, Shawn Green and Daphne Bavelier, at the University of Rochester, New York, have found that your visual processing abilities are not fixed and can be improved dramatically using video action games. They have been able to produce dramatic improvements in both attentional blink times and subitizing. These results were only seen with action, fast moving video games and were not seen when participants played other video games such as Tetris.

According to Green and Bavelier, participants who played the game, ‘Medal of Honor: Allied Assault’ for an hour each day for 10 days were able to subitize to a higher number and recovered from the attentional blink faster. The researchers concluded that both visual processing and the capacity for visual attention could be significantly improved by playing fast action video games.

Visual attention problems go hand in hand with ADHD inattention. Studies are showing that improving visual attention with video games can improve the inattention of ADHD.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that the screen time of children be limited to no more than 2 hours a day. Two much screen time can adversely affect attention but for children with Inattentive type ADHD, video gaming with fast action games appears to be therapeutic.

While other screen time will need to be limited, children with the Inattentive type of ADHD, the world over, will surely rejoice at the news that the action video games that they have always enjoyed playing, are now considered therapy for their ADHD inattention.

About the Author: Tess Messer has published numerous articles on Inattentive type ADHD. Information and resources for Inattentive type ADHD can be found at:

Primarily Inattentive ADD

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