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Therapeutic Video Game Recommendations for non-English speakers

Research around the impact of gaming both positive and negative has been conducted for decades. The research has shown the benefits of gaming include stress relief, critical thinking, creative stimulation, and more. In 2016 Child’s Play hired Circana, a video game research company, to develop a Therapeutic Video Game Recommendations guide.  With the help of mental health researchers at The University of California San Diego, Circana provides Child’s Play with a monthly updated list of games that can help address Pain, Anxiety, Sadness, Cognitive Impairment and Short and Long Term Stays in the hospital.


The PDF version of the game guide shares a small sample of the data and recommends games that are most suited to aid with chronic pain, anxiety, sadness and other situations.  Last year thanks to the generous support of the McGovern Foundation, Child’s Play developed  an online searchable Game Guide database (www.gametherapy.org) with the full data.  

This year, mostly through a partnership with Catchafire and Hasbro Skill Share volunteers,  Child’s Play can now offer the PDF version of the guide in 11 different languages.  English, French, Arabic, Spanish, Swahili, Mandarin, German, Italian, Bangla, Filipino & Russian are now available on our site.  Child’s Play is working to add additional languages over the next few months. If you are fluent in a language and are interested in volunteering to translate the Therapeutic Video Game Guide reach out to us at [email protected].  

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