Can Playing Sudoku Help with Autism?

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects how a person’s brain works. Children are born with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), as it’s known today, even though some of their symptoms may not appear until a year or two after they are born.

When the symptoms do appear, they also can affect children in many different ways, with some symptoms occurring and others not, and those symptoms occurring at different severity for each individual.

Generally speaking, children with autism will struggle with communication and social interactions. They will also typically have restrictive interests, exhibit repetitive behaviors and sometimes even face sensory challenges.

Luckily, there are great treatment plans such as applied behavioral analysis that can help tremendously in building these skills over time. ABA therapy is a science- and evidence-based approach to learning and behavior that can help children build the skills with which they commonly struggle.

ABA therapy follows many different strategies to teach these skills, and many of these strategies are play-based. A major focus of the treatment is supporting and building brain functions, which is why things such as memory games and “what is missing” are games that are often played during this therapy.

Another popular game that has been touted as beneficial to people with autism is Sudoku. But, can this problem-solving numbers game really help with autism?

Learn more about the memory skills of people with autism

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What is Sudoku?

Sudoku is a numbers-based problem-solving game. It’s fun for people of any age, as there can be varying degrees of difficulty.

While the game includes numbers, it’s not a math game, which is an important feature of it from the perspective of a person with autism.

Instead, it’s a game based in logic where you have to fill in each empty box with a specific number based on patterns in other boxes around it.

Typically speaking, a Sudoku game board is a 9×9 grid that is broken up into nine separate 3×3 grids. Each box in the mini grids will have a number in it from one to nine.

When the game starts, certain numbers will already be filled in some of the boxes. The goal is to fill in the remaining boxes with the correct numbers.

The rules are pretty simple. The same number can’t appear in the same row or column, nor in the same mini grid. This means that when the board is filled out correctly, every number between one and nine will appear in each row and each column, with no repeating numbers.

Players use the numbers that are in the boxes to determine which numbers can and can’t be in the remaining blank boxes.

How Does Sudoku Help with Autism?

There are many basic skills that Sudoku teaches everyone, but that are particularly valuable to children on the autism spectrum.

First, it reinforces recognition of figures. Children who play it will recognize the numbers and then, over time, begin to make connections between each of the numbers in the game and then outside of the game.

Second, it teaches ever-important problem-solving skills. Puzzles are great at this in general, but Sudoku is especially effective at doing so.

Third, it can work to help expand a child’s memory. When children are reading the game board, they are storing information into their short-term memory that they then will quickly use to make decisions about what numbers go into some of the other boxes.

This is an incredibly important aspect of the game from the perspective of a child with ASD. It really helps to improve brain cognition, which is something that will result in many other benefits.

Finally, Sudoku helps children build confidence in themselves. This is an aspect of autism that is oftentimes overlooked but is very important.

Children who have autism may not be very confident — and in fact may experience a lot of anxiety because of that. Sudoku can help them build that confidence, as they complete puzzles and achieve impressive things that neurotypical people are doing, too.

Blue Gems ABA Integrates Fun Into Learning for Children with Autism

Children with autism face many challenges that a lot of their neurotypical peers do not. A lot of this has to do with the way their brain functions, due to a number of factors.

Luckily, treatment plans such as ABA therapy can help them build the social, communication and daily life skills they often struggle with.

At Blue Gems ABA, our team of experienced therapists integrate fun into the learning environment so that children with ASD are much more engaged during therapy sessions. We create customized treatment plans that are based off each individual child’s unique strengths and challenges, which also makes our therapy much more effective.

To learn more, please contact us today.