Abstract

MINDS ONLINE is a gamified, 3-D animated, self-paced health promotion program that embeds a therapeutic cognitive based approach to help adolescents with and without neurodevelopmental disorders resolve everyday negative thought patterns that arise from academic and social interactions. These negative thought patterns are causal in the development and maintenance of mental health problems. Altering negative interpretive bias has great potential to prevent onset of mental health problems. Co designed over three years via extensive interviews and software development with adolescents aged 10 to 16 years with and without neurodevelopmental disorders, their parents, teachers and school psychologists MINDS ONLINE weaves an overarching story into 10 x 25-minute episodes. All episodes are fully narrated, and all words spoken appear synchronously on screen. Students are repeatedly exposed to mental health challenges in episodes and trained to resolve them in a benign manner. Interpretive bias data are downloaded during game play, standardised measures are administered pre- and post-game play, and self-report data are collected throughout. A recent trial with 1,000 adolescents, and a second with adolescents with neurodevelopmental disorders in which group and individual time series data were collected shows MINDS ONLINE successfully alters adolescents’ negative interpretive bias to more benign interpretations and as such reduces adverse mental health and increases positive mental wellbeing. Post-game co-design with adolescents resulted in a number of changes to avatars and game structure.

Presenters

Stephen Houghton
Professor, Director Child and Adolescent Mental Health and Wellbeing Research Clinic, Graduate School of Education, The University of Western Australia, Western Australia, Australia

Details

Presentation Type

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Theme

Health Promotion and Education

KEYWORDS

ADOLESCENTS, MENTAL HEALTH, GAMIFIED 3-D ANIMATION, THERAPEUTIC APPROACH

Digital Media

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