Podcast 33: Executive Skill Transference and Play Diets

Modern video games are complicated and require a lot of learning, problem solving, memory, planning, and other things that psychologists might identify as executive functions of the brain. There's a lot going on between our ears whenever we play.

And wouldn't it be great if some of those mental gymnastics helped us with dealing with more mundane but probably more important tasks outside of games. Stuff like school, work, and interacting with other people? Can you connect game-based learning and practice of these skills with "real life" skills? Might this be especially useful for certain people, like kids with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder or who are on the autism spectrum? But even if so, can parents and other caregivers go too far and neglect other types of play that are also important?

These are the types of questions that I'm going to talk about with this episode's guest expert, Dr. Randy Kulman of Learningworksforkids.com.