Chess as a Therapeutic Agent

Chess has widely been celebrated as an effective tool for developing quality cognition. But it has not received the value and recognition it deserves with regard to other benefits such as helping with emotional intelligence, stimulating critical thinking, and improving impulse control.

Chess Without Borders in conjunction with special education teacher Mr. Peter Wulff explored using chess as a therapeutic aid for pediatrics and adolescents. Mr. Wulff has been teaching chess to his pediatric and adolescent students who have been treated for therapeutic support at Riveredge Hospital, a behavioral hospital in the Chicagoland area. The students who have worked with this program had previously been informally taught chess in both inpatient and outpatient programs. However, thanks to a generous grant provided to Chess Without Borders through Ascension and Exelon, a more formal, thoroughly-structured program was established. Mr. Wulff, a special education teacher and avid chess player, facilitated these chess lessons with the aid of the instructional textbook, Chess! Lessons from a Grandmaster by GM Yury Shulman and chess expert Rishi Sethi.

As a result of introducing chess to this group, Mr. Wulff observed the following benefits:

· Participating in chess games and instructional exercises enabled the youth to demonstrate quality impulse control, and reflect on the outcome of decisions prior to acting upon them. This tactic was achieved by holding contemplative discussions with the students during the game to consider the consequences of their prospective moves.

· Through deeper concentration and cognitive engagement via chess, youth appeared to decrease anxiety and improve their self-confidence in their intellectual abilities.

· Playing with peers and experiencing a healthy, engaging social exchange helped instill gainful social behaviors.

· Increased exposure resulted in generating a higher degree of interests and initiative. For example, upon discharge students would become so enthusiastic about chess that they would ask to take a textbook home to continue their passion.

• Behaviorally challenged youth who were being hospitalized for aggressive, impulsive behaviors would utilize chess as an effective coping mechanism that would help reduce these problematic behaviors. This would also enable the hospital staff to address their needs more efficaciously.

Chess has previously been lauded for its gain in fostering quality emotional and cognitive developments, as conveyed in the following reference:

“It is well known that one of the last parts of the brain to develop is the prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for planning, judgment, and self-control. So adolescents are scientifically immature until this part develops. Strategy games like chess can promote prefrontal cortex development and help them make better decisions in all areas of life, perhaps keeping them from making foolish, risky choices of the kind associated with being a teenager.”*

Chess Without Borders is committed to promoting this game to be viewed and more widely employed for its therapeutic benefits. Educators and therapists alike may find it rewarding to witness first handedly how chess can elicit quality development of the prefrontal cortex among youth, and foster healthy behavioral growth.

*http://www.onlinecollegecourse... chess/http://www.onlinecollegecourse...-chess/

Dr Kiran Frey and Mr Peter Wulff