Effectiveness of computer games on the attention score of mentally retarded persons

The purpose of this study was to evaluate computer game's effectiveness in mentally retarded persons. This study was a clinical trial (2004-2005), in which two centers of mentally retarded residential institutions in Tehran were selected on the base of willing to cooperate and easy access. Randomly one of them assigned to case group and the other to control group. And 30 persons selected from each, randomly. Computer game programs were implemented in 12 3-sessional weeks. Attention score calculated using Toulouse-Pieron test, in three sessions: pre intervention, exactly after intervention and 5 weeks after intervention. Descriptive analysis, T test and one way ANOVA, and Repeated measure were used respectively for demographic date, comparing groups and attention score comparing in different sessions. Statistic operations were performed using IBM SPSS 19. The results showed that exactly after intervention, mean attention score was 19.33 and 9.09 respectively in case and control group. The intervention had a significant impact on the attention score (F1.3, 75.2=13.7, P<0.001). And in the stage 3 a decline in the attention score of case group was seen. We can conclude that computer game intervention for 35 sessions could affect mentally retarded person's attention score. But this attention score would be going to decline, 5 weeks after intervention. So this intervention wasnt durable.