Effect of video gaming on some central auditory processing abilities in school aged children, cross sectional study

The effect of video games playing was variable in the literature. On one hand, it leads to boosting brain function in response speed, concentration, attention and spatial cognition, on the other hand, a certain type of games have negative effects on the cognition and proper processing of the central nervous system. In The best of the authors knowledge, there is no study investigated the effects of video gaming on central auditory processing in school-aged children, so the objective of this work is to study the effect of video gaming on some central auditory processing abilities in school-aged children.

50 children aged 6–12 years old, playing video games > 2 h/d, were subjected to psychometric, basic audiological evaluation, history of mobile phone use and Central Auditory Processing (CAP) Disorders. CAP evaluation included; Speech Intelligibility In Noise (SPIN), Arabic Dichotic Digits (DD), Memory and Auditory Vigilance tests.

The highest percentage of abnormality in CAP abilities was in selective attention ability followed by sequential memory besides the negative correlation with duration (hours) of video gaming use per day.

Video gaming has a negative impact on CAP abilities in children, particularly auditory attention and memory.