A new study shows that kids with an autism spectrum disorder spend twice as much time playing video games compared to those who don’t have a developmental disability.
It has also been found that kids with autism spectrum disorder and attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are at a heightened risk of video gaming addictions than those of normal kids.
Christopher Engelhardt, one of the study authors from the University of Missouri in Columbia said, “What we found is that it looks like addictive gaming was largely driven by inattention.”
The researchers surveyed parents of 141 boys with ages between eight to 18 years old. The questionnaires used were designed to find out the number of hours the child spend in playing video games, the type of games, problematic gaming, in-room access to video games, and symptoms of ADHD.
The analysis revealed that 56 of which display autism spectrum disorder, 44 had ADHD, and 41 were normally developing.
Generally, it has been found that children with autism spectrum disorder, played video games for an average of 2.1 hours daily, kids with ADHD, on the other hand, spends an average of 1.7 hours daily playing video games , and normally developing kids played for an average of 1.2 hours daily.
Normally developing kids are most likely to pick first-person shooter or sports game, while kids with autism spectrum disorder and ADHD tended to choose role-playing games – though the latter finding could have been due to chance.
While the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that kids should not spend more than 2 hours in front of a screen per day, the study shows that kids with autism spectrum disorder and ADHD were more likely to have a video game system in their rooms.
Another finding was that children with an autism spectrum disorder and ADHD were more apt to display symptoms of video game addiction or "problematic video game use" compared to kids with typical development.
They concluded that the number of hours spent by a child playing video games and inattention may have contributed to video game addiction.
The study was published in the online journal Pediatrics.
