Attention and focus games for kids

Attention is choosing what to look at and keeping track of it — spotting your friend in a crowd, following teammates in a ball game, or finding one word on a busy page.

In Odd One Out your child scans a grid for the one picture that is different, and in Fish Tracker they follow several glowing fish as they swim among look-alikes. Grids grow and fish speed up as your child gets better.

What the research says

A large review by Bediou and colleagues (2018) found that fast-paced, action-style video games produced modest improvements in some kinds of attention, beyond the games themselves. Most of those studies were with older children and adults.

Simons and colleagues (2016) warn that these benefits are usually small and narrow. So the honest summary is “some evidence”: these games may sharpen visual attention a little, but they are not a fix for attention problems in everyday life.

Sources:

• Bediou et al. (2018), Psychological Bulletin: action video games and attention
• Simons et al. (2016), Psychological Science in the Public Interest: do brain-training programs work?

Try it at home, off-screen

• Count every red car on the way to school.
• Play “I spy” with tiny details.
• Find 5 differences between your room today and yesterday.