Game-Like Therapy Helps Kids with ADHD
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| Neurotransmitters |
A Camarillo-based organization is using Interactive Metronome to help improve brain timing.
By Daisy Lin and Bruce Hensel
| Thursday, Aug 23, 2012 | Updated 7:22 PM PDT
It looks like a noisy video game, but it’s actually a therapy that is helping 11-year-old Adam Solomon train his brain.
When he was in second grade, Adam was reading at kindergarten level. He couldn’t focus and no one knew what was wrong.
“I tried so many things that would
wake me from daydreaming when I would stare off into space, like stare
off at the wall or something. And the teacher would tap on my desk to wake
me up. And I would have to do this all the time,” he said.
Adam was in danger of having to go on
ADHD (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) medication. His family
didn’t want that to happen, but his mother Diane Solomon said Adam’s
condition was going from bad to worse.
“Adam couldn’t understand
instruction. When he did understand instruction he only got part of it,”
she said. “He could not coordinate some of his physical movements to do
some of the instruction. Every day was the worst of my life. Every day
was a struggle.”
Desperate, they tried something different: an innovative treatment from Camarillo-based Hardy Brain Training called Interactive Metronome. Sherri Hardy trains kids on the program.
“For a lot of kids the biggest problem is that the brain timing is imperfect. It’s not as regulated as it could be,” Hardy said.
The program tries to improve that
brain timing and rhythm through a computer program. Patients hear a tone
and have to clap their hands or tap their foot to match the beat. The
screen gives instant feedback on how well they are keeping up. As their
coordination improves, so does their concentration.
“Neurochemically, the brain is
talking to itself [self-talk] by sending neurotransmitters throughout the brain in
different firing patterns, and as those firing patterns become more and
more accurate, then things become easier,” Hardy said. “The brain
becomes more organized and that relates to paying attention better, to
learn faster to retain information and use it so we can do better in the
classroom.”
Adam’s parents say he showed a
remarkable difference after he trained on the program for a summer, and
they were able to streamline him into a regular classroom for the first
time in his life.
After a few more years of training, he tested into the gifted program at Johns Hopkins University.
“It was like, wow, I can do this, and I could never do this before, ever,” said Adam, who wants to be a doctor.
Kids with ADHD, Autism, or other attention problems, stroke patients and athletes may find Interactive Metronome useful.
To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
To find out more about the Interactive Metronome and the way it works, please click here to access the "How it works" section of the Interactive Metronome website.
Excerpt:
"There exists a growing body of literature describing the neural timing deficits in ADHD, Dyslexia, Autism, Reading Disorders, Auditory Processing Disorder, Parkinson’s, and other conditions. [...] By addressing timing in the brain with Interactive Metronome (IM) alongside functional therapy interventions you are not only addressing areas of ability that impact achievement and independence but also the heart of the problem, that of deficient neural timing within and between regions of the brain that are underlying many of the problems you are working on in therapy. This leads to more efficient treatment and better overall treatment outcomes."