Chess Enhances Mental Ability

A. Some people take chess as a sport, most of them, but I don’t. It’s a science and a tool for cognition development. I work on Comprehensive Cognitive Development. I believe that chess enhances the intellectual quotient of a child. Chess can be used as a tool to affect the conceptual thinking in a child, the reasoning ability and perception. By perception I mean the ability of the child to look at things, look at the world in the proper perspective.

Q. Have you had children where you’ve noticed the way chess has impacted their behaviour?

A. Yes, for example some parents say that their children cannot cross the road, that’s a simple perception. After they play chess at the Centre, they have multi-dimensional looking. I do brain mapping here, now I can understand the different areas of a child’s cognitive skills and areas where specific challenges faced by the child need to be addressed. If a child is having a problem with memory, not able to think, look clearly, issues with reasoning, ADHD we will know it without the help of a psychologist. Not only identifying it, we correct it. We have become a referral institute for some of the special children.

Q. How have you been successful with children with special needs?

A. Children with ADHD and Dyslexia have been here. Many times at a later date we have realised we have been referred. Sometimes we have taken a dyslexic child all the way to the National Championship level, to play for India in the championship. We know it, but that doesn’t affect the child. So we work on the strengths of the child and we correct the areas. To me, chess is a research where I’m trying to analyse how chess as an intervention helps the cognitive growth of a child.

Q. Does a person have to be really smart to play chess?

A. We have an Occupational Therapist and a psychologist to measure and to see the influence of chess learning in a child. We believe every child can play chess. Of course we are not talking about people with very low IQ level below 60. But we have extraordinary geniuses also and we use chess to identify and challenge geniuses. But we don’t want to portray ourselves as a research institute for chess; it’s more a fun activity.

Q. Do you think that if you project as a Centre with behavioural therapy included, parents might have a mind block sending their kids here?

A. We have dealt with more than 2000 kids so far. Every child is unique, every child has got strengths and every child has got weaknesses. Is it a behavioural problem? Is it a parental problem? Is it a single child problem, cognitive level problem, confidence level problem, lack of confidence, the killer instinct or unable to take a defeat? There are many issues that have never been addressed. The point is you do not address the failure problem. It’s a simple problem of inability to take a defeat. The first Board exam he takes is the 10^th standard, he fails and he commits suicide, now all that is evident in a five year old child. The child starts crying, unable to face defeat. We teach them how to lose gracefully. We teach them how to win passionately without giving up. When they play they should play with the killer instinct, we take them to the heights of that and when they lose they have the dignity to congratulate the opponent. That’s the ethos here: do your best, the pursuit of excellence at the same time you understand it’s only a game.

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