Serious play
Games and play to develop executive function
© 2014 Commonwealth of Australia through the Australian Government Department of Education.
This material may be used, reproduced in material form and communicated free of charge for non-commercial
educational purposes until 31 December 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are retained.
Why games and play are important
Games and play are some of the main vehicles of learning in humans. They teach us a variety of
management, flexibility and memory skills, and if approached with some strategic intent the results can be
even more powerful.
It's worth thinking for a moment about the difference between games and play.
Games are typically a competition, where a player manipulates elements in order to achieve a 'win' state.
Rules are imposed to make certain tasks artificially difficult, for example, taking the king in chess is easy if
you're allowed to reach out and grab it – but that's against the rules. Games can be fun but they can also
be sources of stress and conflict, particularly if played professionally.
Play is often about the breaking of rules rather than imposing them. Historically, jesters and jokers are the
ones who have license to break social rules. Play doesn't need to have a win state; it is often open-ended
and done purely for the pleasure it provides. By definition, play is fun; if you're not having fun, you're not
playing.
A game is a thing – play is a spirit. Keep this distinction in mind and you will make good use of games and
play in developing executive function.
Games
There are two key ways you can use games to develop executive functions.
 Play an existing game from off the shelf.
 Apply game mechanics to non-game tasks.
Playing off-the-shelf games
By 'off-the-shelf' games we mean any game that has a known rule set. This could be anything from a social
game like Simon says, to a retail board game like Monopoly, to a computer game like Starcraft. While
games are often positioned as a treat for younger classes, they can be used quite strategically to develop
cognitive skills. This is particularly beneficial to children who have low executive function.
Different games put different loads on our executive functions. If you think about a game from an
executive function point of view, you can easily develop a useful profile of it.
© 2014 Commonwealth of Australia through the Australian Government Department of Education.
This material may be used, reproduced in material form and communicated free of charge for non-commercial
educational purposes until 31 December 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are retained.
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For instance, consider Simon says. It's clear that the original version is a great game for developing impulse
inhibition.
Analysis of Simon says, the original version
Executive function
Benefit to game
Impulse inhibition
This is the entire point of Simon says, and the main reason why it is so
successful with young children.
Working memory
Negligible
Mental flexibility
Negligible
That said, if you have a good grasp of the three main executive functions, you can easily add tweaks to a
game like Simon says to make it more challenging.
Analysis of Simon says, with tweaks
Executive function
Benefit to game
Impulse inhibition
This is the entire point of the original version of Simon says, and the main
reason why it is so successful with young children.
Working memory
Tweak 1: Have a rule where you can switch from obeying Simon to disobeying
Simon. Now players have to keep in mind the current 'state' as they play: 'Are
we obeying or disobeying Simon right now?'
Tweak 2: Have a rule where players can only do what Simon says if the
instruction matches the previous instruction. So you only put your hands on
your head if the previous instruction was to put your hands on your head. (And
no, your hands wouldn't already be on your head! Think about it!) Then if you
want to make it really hard you say players can only obey if the instruction
matches not the last instruction but the one before that (or the one before
that … )
Mental flexibility
Tweak 1: Impose an additional requirement on the players that they have to
maintain, even when Simon's instructions run counter to it. For instance,
players have to make the shape of a bird at all times, or they have to stay on all
fours, or they have to have both feet on the ground at all times. Players must
figure out ways to reconcile Simon's order with the imposed rule.
Tweak 2: Simon's instructions are ambiguous and open to interpretation. For
instance, 'Simon says, "Face towards two people who are older than you."'
Players must interpret the instruction and figure out a solution.
© 2014 Commonwealth of Australia through the Australian Government Department of Education.
This material may be used, reproduced in material form and communicated free of charge for non-commercial
educational purposes until 31 December 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are retained.
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You can see that even the most simple game can be tweaked to provide additional challenges, so when
playing off-the-shelf games, don't limit yourself. Think outside the box!
Here are some more game profiles to help you. We've stuck to the basic rule sets. You should add your
own tweaks.
Monopoly, the original version
Executive function
Benefit of game
Impulse inhibition
Turn-taking; purchasing decisions
Working memory
Basic arithmetic; purchasing and development strategy; personal vendettas
against other players
Mental flexibility
Negligible
Uno, the original version
Executive function
Benefit of game
Impulse inhibition
Turn-taking; card-playing decisions
Working memory
Maintaining a card-depletion strategy
Mental flexibility
Responding to changes in the deck
Scrabble and Upwords, the original versions
Executive function
Benefit of game
Impulse inhibition
Turn-taking; accepting the first word that comes to mind; sticking with the
search for a high-scoring word
Working memory
Taxing interaction between letters in hand and letters on board; calculations of
potential scores
Mental flexibility
Many combinations of possible words
© 2014 Commonwealth of Australia through the Australian Government Department of Education.
This material may be used, reproduced in material form and communicated free of charge for non-commercial
educational purposes until 31 December 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are retained.
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Chess, Go, Starcraft and other strategy games, the original versions
Executive function
Benefit of game
Impulse inhibition
Rushing into a move without evaluating the board
Working memory
Permutations of moves; structures and patterns of elements on the board;
demonstrations of intent from opposing player
Mental flexibility
Responding to actions of other player; changing own plans
You can see from this cursory list that many games have elements of impulse inhibition and working
memory load, and a handful impose heavy demands on mental flexibility. The degree to which these
faculties are challenged is a reflection of the game's depth and complexity.
Applying game mechanics
Another fruitful way to develop executive function is to take ideas from within games and apply them to
other activities. Here are a few ideas.
Balderdash
Balderdash is a game of bluff, where players provide fake definitions of words and other players must
guess which definitions are true. This type of 'spot the lie' or 'find the truth' mechanic can be applied to all
sorts of contexts, from simple conversations with young children to guessing games with high school
students.
For instance, in a maths class players might write one true explanation and multiple false explanations for a
mathematical function, and other players must attempt to guess which is correct. The challenge for liars is
in producing explanations that are wrong but plausible, and the challenge for guessers is distinguishing
between correct and incorrect properties of the explanations.
Pictionary, Charades, Taboo et al
The key idea with games like Pictionary and Charades is to limit communication. You must express a
concept to others but you can only use certain means of communication, and you are not allowed to name
the concept outright. The players must think around the problem to find distinctive features or meaningful
associations. This mechanic can be applied to any classroom content. Draw the battle of Gallipoli. Mime an
exponential function. The more abstract or complex the concept, the greater the demand on the players.
As a teacher you can impose additional restrictions to make the game even harder, for instance disallowing
particular images or references.
© 2014 Commonwealth of Australia through the Australian Government Department of Education.
This material may be used, reproduced in material form and communicated free of charge for non-commercial
educational purposes until 31 December 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are retained.
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Celebrity head
Celebrity head is essentially an inversion of limited communication games like Taboo. Instead of one
'knower' and many 'guessers', these games have one guesser and many knowers. The guesser must elicit
information from the other players, who have to obey fixed rules around what information they are
allowed to provide directly.
Playing with intent and skill
If you want to use off-the-shelf games as serious executive function tools, you actually have a hard task
ahead of you: you're going to need to play with intent, and keep pushing your level of skill up the curve so
you are constantly challenged. If you play mindlessly, or just use the same techniques every time, there is
no cognitive benefit. You have to push yourself, and the problem is that this is hard work and feels that
way. Professional athletes train, professional game-players train – played at a high level, games are work.
This is particularly challenging when using games in a classroom context. Students often enjoy breaking out
a game, but if you make them stop and start thinking analytically and strategically, suddenly the lustre can
wear off.
Think of yourself as a game maker
Because we learn early on that games come with rules that must be obeyed, we tend to be quite obedient
around them. We forget that as kids we bent and twisted and varied rules all the time. When using games
in the classroom or at home, it's worth thinking of yourself as a game designer, with licence to change rules
and experiment as you wish.
Play
While a great deal of this resource has been devoted to games, the concept of play is even more important.
While games by definition have rules, roles and victory conditions, play stretches beyond these boundaries
to become something that is more like an attitude towards engaging with the world, both in reality and
imagination.
Playful approach
Play is not just an act, it is an attitude. It embodies the kind of optimism, openness, curiosity and good
humour that we ultimately want to see in children, students and peers. Play is an important component of
innovation and creativity, and it is worth reflecting on how a playful approach might be applied to school,
work and life generally.
© 2014 Commonwealth of Australia through the Australian Government Department of Education.
This material may be used, reproduced in material form and communicated free of charge for non-commercial
educational purposes until 31 December 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are retained.
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Free play
The importance of free play to child development is well established in Australian education. Note that
while The Adventures of You promotes a strategic approach to developing executive function, it's important
that this doesn't completely displace the need for open-ended, undirected, purposeless play. Play is likely
to be most effective when children are challenged and their thinking is stretched. Depending on the
situation, free play can provide opportunities for these actions to occur.
Role-play
One form of play that is of specific interest in the context of executive function is role-play. Children roleplay all the time, and older students often relish the chance to perform a role. While most role-play is
open-ended, with a little strategic intent, teachers can load the experience with additional learning and
development benefits by:
 providing an immersion experience before play
so that students can learn deeply about the world of their roles. When students take on these
roles, they must inhibit their behaviour in a variety of ways to be able to stay in character
 extending role-plays over several days
so that students must keep in mind multiple elements of their roles and relationships
 throwing tweaks and plot twists into student role-plays
so that they must respond in character to new situations, which requires mental flexibility and
inventiveness.
© 2014 Commonwealth of Australia through the Australian Government Department of Education.
This material may be used, reproduced in material form and communicated free of charge for non-commercial
educational purposes until 31 December 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are retained.
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Resources
'If only school was engaging like a video game!' This sentiment has produced an almost overwhelming
amount of writing on the subject of games in education. We have listed a few resources here, but there is
much more for you to explore.
Websites
The Mantle of the expert website provides a sophisticated framework for using role-play and drama in
learning. http://www.mantleoftheexpert.com
The Games in education website pulls together many games, both digital and physical.
http://gamesined.wikispaces.com
Books
Schelle, J 2008, The art of game design: a book of lenses, Schell Games.
This book is one of the best foundational game design texts around. Very useful if you want to think at
a deeper level about game mechanics, and imagine for yourself how they might be applied to learning.
Jones, G 2002, Killing monsters: why children need fantasy, super-heroes and make-believe violence, Basic
Books.
A thorough discussion of fantasy play and violence in child development, from a writer of comic books.
Sources of information
Bodrova, E, & Leong, DL 2007, Tools of the mind (2nd edn), Pearson/Merrill Prentice Hall, NJ
Kelly, R, Hammond, S, Dissanayake, C & Ihsen, E 2011, 'The relationship between symbolic play and
executive function in young children', Australasian journal of early childhood, 36(2), 21.
Weisberg, DS, Hirsh-Pasek, K & Golinkoff, RM 2013, 'Guided play: Where curricular goals meet a playful
pedagogy', Mind, brain, and education, 7(2), 104–112.
© 2014 Commonwealth of Australia through the Australian Government Department of Education.
This material may be used, reproduced in material form and communicated free of charge for non-commercial
educational purposes until 31 December 2018, provided all copyright notices and acknowledgements are retained.
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