Interactive metronome

[quote=”RA”]I am considering interactive mentronome training for my 8 yo ADHD/LD daughter. She hated fast forward training and did not benefit much from it. She is unable to take medications. My questions are: Do children tolerate interactive mentronome training well? and Does medication seem to affect outcome? Thanks.[/quote]

You might want to post this on the Parenting LD board, a few people there have tried IM.

IM seemed like something that my son would not do. It is incredibly boring. I found it difficult to watch.

He never complained once about going. I think he saw that it was helping him. I also think it helped that he liked and respected the trainer.

He would have complained if it was with me.

We did FFW and IM. FFW is more difficult to get through. IM is less intense. My son was whipped from doing it for the first couple weeks but then seemed to actually like it. He did quite well with it and we saw many positive benefits.

Beth

Do the positive effects fade or do the seem to be long lasting?

[quote=”RA”]Do the positive effects fade or do the seem to be long lasting?[/quote]

So far as I know, there is no research yet on whether the effects continue once the treatment stops. I know of one recent study of boys with ADHD who were taking stimulant medication and who also received IM treatment. They showed improvement in several measures of attention. The boys in the IM group were compared against boys who played a nonviolent video game and boys who received no treatment beyond medication. The IM group showed improvement on the most measures of attention, but the boys who played the video game also showed improvement. The boys who received no additional treatment did not show any statistically significant changes in performance. The study did not give information about the magnitude of the improvement and did not examine whether the good effects lasted. Parent information is helpful, but your best bet for evaulating whether IM is a good choice for your child is to look for well-conducted research. It may not answer all of your questions, but it will give you a basis for deciding whether to put your resources toward that treatment.

Andrea

According to my son’s IM provider the results will last if you get the timing down to the optimal levels.

I felt that the results did stick for the entire year since we did it even though his timing was not brought to the optimal levels.

She has brought previous patients back in to test their timing and she says that once the timing is brought down it stays down.

I think one of the keys is that you use the new motor timing skills through involvement in sports or music lessons.
If you sat on the couch it might not stick.

That’s interesting Linda. We certainly are one of the IM success stories. His therapist practically begged me to get him piano lessons but I resisted because I felt we had too much remediation to do. He did work on typing that summer which involves some of the same skills. I wonder if I made a mistake.

I wonder where his timing is at now. He got it down during therapy to the “optimal level”. Even if that level did not stay, there is no doubt that his timing is much much better than before IM. I can see it in sports and I can see it in handwriting.

Beth

Piano is great but I also think the NN therapy that you do and the vision therapy we do relies on the motor timing skills. We are back to piano with a new teacher after a brief hiatus.

My son has just taken off in sports. I really must say I can’t get over the recent change. He wanted this so much. I can’t say if it is IM or VT or just a combination of all our work. He sacked the QB last night.

Last year he was so out to lunch he would be the kid the coach was calling to get in the game and he was on cloud nine. Now his head is in the game.

I hope he does this well in school this year.

We too have seen a huge sports change since doing therapy. I think for a kid who struggles in school it is really a major boost to have something other kids care about that they are good at. I have seen my son really develop with new found sports ability.

I tell my husband that the therapy was worth it just to see the difference in how he feels about himself.

He wants to take gymnastics again this fall because he wants to do a back flip. He quit two years ago because the boy next door told him too many times gymnastics was for girls. I think he is surer of himself now.

He says he doesn’t want to do piano. I may bargain with him to try for six months after soccer season is over in December. He was the child who wanted to take lessons at age 4. I think he remembers how hard it was for him.

I’m holding my breath about school too. He had to do a book report this summer and his writing is still so bad. Actually, it is mostly his spelling—the ideas are there. I ended up on the word processor with him. I showed him how 75% of his spelling errors were fixed by the spell checker. He can recognize the correct spellng so it is not hopeless. I told him he had to learn to type. He didn’t argue. He actually learned last summer and then refused to do it for school. I think he thought it made him look different and IM improved his handwriting enough that he could get by.

Beth

My daughter loves dance. She has 4 years of experience yet her timing is a bit off. Maybe interactive mentronome could help with that - any dancers out there? Also, for poor spellers, especially middle school and beyond, co-writer word prediction progam is a good option. Thanks for the feedback.