The Additive Effect of CBT Elements on the Video Game 'Mindlight' in Decreasing Anxiety Symptoms of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
Lieke A M W Wijnhoven, Rutger C M E Engels, Patrick Onghena and 2 others
PMID 33660138WHAT IT FOUND
Adding two CBT sessions to the video game Mindlight did not significantly lower anxiety symptoms in eight children with autism.
While some children improved, the study found no evidence that the CBT elements provided an additive benefit over the game alone.
Key findings
01There was no significant difference in the decrease of daily anxiety symptoms between the Mindlight phase and the subsequent CBT phase.
02Only two participants showed a clinically significant decrease in anxiety symptoms from screening to 3-month follow-up, while three showed no decrease at all.
03Four participants showed a significant increase in coping skills, but this did not consistently translate to further anxiety reduction beyond the game phase.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study included only eight participants, making it a small pilot with very low statistical power to detect individual differences. Visual analysis of the data, a key part of the assessment, is subjective. Many participants already showed anxiety reduction during the initial Mindlight phase, which may have masked any additional benefit from the CBT sessions (ceiling effect of the game). The study did not include a control group that received no treatment or a different intervention, so it is unclear if the improvements were due to the specific components or simply the passage of time or attention. All participants were of Dutch origin and had normal cognitive functioning, limiting generalizability to other populations.
Declared interests
The authors declare no competing interests. The study was conducted in a mental health institute in the Netherlands.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that CBT is ineffective for anxiety in children with ASD based on this paper. The study only tested adding two brief CBT sessions to a specific video game intervention in a very small group, and the lack of additive effect may be due to the game itself being sufficient for many participants or the CBT component being too short.