Cogmed and other brain training software

[lcolbybloombergnews]

Hello, I'm a reporter with Bloomberg News working on a story about the use of Cogmed and other brain training software for ADHD. Would anyone who has had experience with it (or decided against using it) be willing to talk with me about it? 

Sincerely,
Laura Colby
212-617-1167
[e-mail]

thank you!

[healthy11]

Although my family doesn't have personal experience with brain training software, I know other members have tried programs such as Jungle Memory, Brainware Safari, Lumosity, PlayAttention, and others, in addition to Cogmed. Hopefully, they will see your request and reply. Would you prefer that responses be given via your email, phone, or private messaging?

[lcolbybloombergnews]

Please contact me at [e-mail]. thank you!

[kewpie]

I have one child that tried Cogmed with no visible results.

I have another child that used The Arrowsmith Program and had very good results. So much so that i put my other child who tried cogmed into the Arrowsmith program.

[keepthefaith]

I've had DD try Lumosity; will have to check out these other options. Thanks for sharing. My sister is trying to get a reporter (I forget his name but he's national) to pick up the story about all the parents in NYC who have to sue NYC school districts for ABA therapy. While I believe ABA is controversial for some, it helps with my neice and here she she is again, at her annual review and back to "Due Process" on the same exact items they forced her hand on last year - they pushed it right up to the resolution process then they agreed to continue with the ABA therapy..........I'll post the name of the reporter and the story line when I next speak to her.

[dwolen]

Hi, Laura Colby,
I sent you an e mail to your e mail address above, x 2, but have not heard from you. Perhaps you did not get my messages?
My dd did Cogmed at the age of 23. She is 25 now. I have posted this stuff here before, so I think it is ok to do again, but given her privacy concerns, if you want more info, you should contact me off the public forum. I also think my dd might be willing to communicate with you.
My dd was dx with LD's and ADHD-In only at age 18 and 21 for complicated reasons. She definitely had a consistently tested very low working memory score since the age of 8, around the 8th percentile, I think.
We found a Cogmed provider for adults in our city, the only provider for adults that I could find. Fortunately, they had a good rapport. My dd found Cogmed difficult to do, especially as the weeks went on and it became more difficult. She said having to check in with the Cogmed provider, who was her Cogmed coach, led her to finish the program. Within a few weeks, she noticed she could remember phone numbers, which she had never been able to do before. She noticed marked improvement in other memory areas, too, gradually, over weeks and months. It seemed like she was calling me up a lot, nearly weekly, with a report of the movements she had noticed for a few months. One I remember is that she could read street signs while she was driving, and she thought her sense of direction had improved. She was really surprised, as she had not expected any results. This made her life easier. She had just transferred to a college as a junior, where she ended up graduating with a BA almost a year ago.

Repeat neuropsych testing at the age of 24, a year after finishing Cogmed, revealed a working memory score at 50th percentile. My dd had been curious of the improvement she noticed in her working memory after doing Cogmed would be reflected in neuropsych testing, and felt satisfied that it was. Her working memory is still a lot lower than her fluid intelligence scores, but at least it is not as impairing as it once was.

I had read the research studies done on Cogmed as of 2010-2011 and was convinced that it was solid evidence. The research I read showed that a consistent 80% of children have improvements in the working memory. It was a huge relief that my dd was in the 80%, because other LD "remedies" and "cures" had been recommended and tried, and they were a disaster, including medication for ADHD, and a goofy dyslexia program called the Davis method.

My husband and I are worried about our brains as we age, and we had bought a computer game program advertised on public TV, called Posit Science. We suggested dd try it, as it definitely focuses on sound recognition, memory, visual processing. At first, she thought it was just for old people, and called it "the old people's program" but after she finished Cogmed, she tried "the old people's program" and found it very helpful. In fact, she went through Posit Science's original 2 programs twice. One thing about my dd, she has a lot of grit, and she really kept up with this, and says it is helpful to her.
Now, if only there were a computer or other "fix" for slow processing speed," an LD that is really difficult for students to cope with.