Will the Poppins video game, which makes it easier to learn to read, be reimbursed by social security?

This video game helps dyslexic children overcome their reading difficulties. For the moment it is only reimbursed by certain mutual insurance companies.

With a view to reimbursement by social security, the game Poppins, on tablet, has already taken a step forward, by being recognized as a digital medical device, andThe designer will submit a scientific file before the end of 2024 to the High Health Authority to seek reimbursement. This game has, in fact, demonstrated its effectiveness in helping dyslexic children overcome their reading difficulties. This disability affects between 3 and 5% of those under 18.

To get an idea of ​​the therapeutic principle of this video game, you have to imagine colorful cartoon characters on the screen. You then have to move them forward to the rhythm of the music by following a route. To progress in the game, the child must also repeat sounds out loud or clap their hands rhythmically.

Learning rhythm and music follows roughly the same neural pathways of learning to read, according to the co-founder of PoppinsFrançois Vonthron. By making their brain work to interact with the sound elements of the game, the child also unknowingly stimulates the brain network which is used to make the deciphering of letters and words more fluid.

This effect was demonstrated by a clinical trial with the support of the child psychiatry department of Pitié Salpêtrière in Paris. Two months of play led to an improvement in reading speed and accuracy in children without speech therapy follow-up.

Medical trials of a video game take place like trials of tablets or vaccines. One part of the participants tests, without knowing it, the real game and the other part plays with a placebo game, therefore a game which graphically resembles the original game, in which the rhythmic stimulation mechanisms have been removed. The placebo game does not stimulate the brain for reading.

The game is only reimbursed by certain mutual insurance companies and the subscription costs between 25 and 40 euros per month depending on the duration. For reimbursement by social security, a file will be submitted to the High Authority of Health, because it must first validate the clinical benefit of video games in the care pathway.

The creators of Poppins hope to experience the same fate as the company TILAK, whose video device has become the first medical application prescribed and reimbursed by health insurance, for monitoring visual disorders, such as AMD.