Training the Brain to Focus
About one in 10 school children suffers from attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Linked to measurable differences in children’s brain structures and brain waves, ADHD can have dire effects on children’s academic achievements and lead to disrupted classrooms.
The CDC reports that as many as 3 million American elementary school children now take medications to control their symptoms. But these drugs don’t work for everyone. Worse, their potential side effects can have serious consequences for kids who also have heart conditions, eating or digestive problems or mood disorders such as depression.
In a recent study, Naomi J. Steiner, director of the CATS Project (Computer Attention Training in Schools for children with ADHD) at Tufts Medical Center, and her colleagues found that computer-based attention-training exercises significantly improved the ability of kids with ADHD to focus and pay attention.
The team tested two kinds of computer training systems. The first, computer cognitive attention training, uses computerized brain exercises to strengthen key mental skills such as short-term memory, eye-hand coordination and visual processing through a series of game-like activities. The second, neurofeedback, measures children’s brain waves in real time and provides visual and auditory feedback that can help them harness their ability to focus. The researchers found that both systems ameliorated the symptoms of ADHD, with neurofeedback outperforming computer cognitive attention training.
What’s more, the team found that the effect lasted months after the computer-based training sessions ended. The results of the large-scale clinical trial, published earlier this year in the journal Pediatrics, bolster the positive findings Steiner and her colleagues saw in a pilot study they conducted previously.
That’s encouraging news, because these therapies—some of which are commercially available to the public and many of which have been adopted by school systems in every state—aren’t yet covered by health insurance policies, nor will they be without a data showing their efficacy. Steiner’s body of research is one more step down that road. (See the story “Your Brain on Video Games.”)
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