Media release from Royal Australian and New Zealand Collage of Psychiatrists

The delegates at this week's congress of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists were presented a paper which will give hope to parents of children with high functioning autism or Asperger's syndrome. During a pilot clinical study, pre and post testing showed that children with high functioning autism or Asperger's syndrome benefited significantly from using a computer game designed to teach social skills.

The pilot clinical study used MyFriendQuest - a downloadable animation game for PCs that has been designed to help children recognise emotions and develop social skills. After approximately six weeks of play for three times a week, the children improved in recognising emotions, had a reduction in their anxiety levels - and in some cases initiated or developed friendships at school for the first time.

Pre and post testing included psychometric testing for facial recognition, social responsiveness and anxiety.

The MyFriendQuest game has been developed by award winning BrightMind LABS - under the clinical leadership and direction of Clinical Psychologist Dr Yvette Ahmad. Dr Ahmad commented that: "since this is a pilot study, these preliminary results should be taken with reservation. But if these results are an indication of what can be shown in future, these results are very exciting".

The RANZCP 2010 Congress is an international conference with over 500 delegates in attendance - and included speakers such as Dr Nancy McWilliams of New Jersey's Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychiatry; and past president of the American Psychiatric Association Professor Paul S Appelbaum.

MyFriendQuest is available for purchase and download to PC at www.myFriendQuest.com.