As a mom of a son who has ADHD I have recently come across a product called Play Attention. A helmet is worn to transmit responses to a computer game (for lack of a better term).
Is anyone familiar with this? How has it worked for you? Is it worth the investment?
Thanks everyone.
Re: Play Attention
I got an email from attention research about this. It sounded interesting, My sons symptoms declined when he was learning the ins and outs of Donkey Kong. There are very complicated levels that are worlds you have to find your way around and collect things and do things in a certain order. He mastered this at five and I can tell you, it was more intricate and complicated than anything I have ever played (I’m old though! I still remember the the Space Invaders music.) When I told the school psych that I believed it was theraputic for him, he nodded his head and said “I believe it, but I’ll deny saying that if you repeat it.” What did that mean? I still don’t know. I would try it if it was free. But $2500 Is dooming it to fail.
Video
Actually, I did read an article sometime back in our local newspaper that said that they have research that did show kids improve their visual perception skill and attention when they play non-violent videos.
A regular on the Parenting Ld kids board (can’t remember who now) was answering a question about IM, and suggested the cheaper alternative but just as effective is the video games.
Video games
There was a study done on interactive metronome using non violent video games as one of the controls. The games increased attention span but not as significantly as the interactive metronome.
I definitely agree that it improves visual perception and some even work on logic and reasoning. I like Mario Brothers, donkey kong, and spyro.
My son couldn’t play video games at all before interactive metronome but now seems to have his gameboy eternally affixed to his fingers.
I have also posted asking for info some time ago. But so far no one seems to have tried it. The only people you get info from are the ones on their site. For the amount of money they want for it, I want guarantees.