Clear Learning Center
An estimated 11.3% of children are diagnosed with ADHD and other attention disorders, having a significant negative impact on their well-being and daily functioning (Reuben & Elgaddal, 2024). Stimulant medication, currently the most Dr. recommended treatment, may not be the right choice for everyone. At Clear’s Learning Center, we offer comprehensive programs and evidence-based non-pharmacological, cognitive interventions to address all your child’s needs, improving their focus and attention, while guiding and encouraging them to achieve their potential.
ADHD and other attention disorders present children with challenging symptoms, interfering with their social skills, familial relationships, and academic success. Higher-order cognitive functions, such as working memory, planning, impulsivity, and attention can be severely impacted (Reuben & Elgaddal, 2024). The inability to sustain attention, difficulty shifting attention, and being easily distracted interfere with learning and can be disruptive in the classroom, making an average school day fraught with complications. Slower maturation of the brain and deficits in the brain's reward system can compound these struggles for children with attention disorders, leading to behavioral problems, lack of motivation, and difficulty making decisions (Reuben & Elgaddal, 2024). During this critical developmental period when neuroplasticity is at its peak, our interventions will strengthen neural pathways to help your child build the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional skills necessary to improve their daily living and academic success.
Although ADHD operates along a spectrum, it is widely agreed upon that a multimodal approach provides the most significant reduction of symptoms (Drechsler, et. al, 2020). Stimulant medication in combination with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is the most recommended intervention to reduce disruptive symptoms and improving skills. CBT focused on social training, organizational skills, and self-regulation has been beneficial, particularly among parent-child relationships, but has not been shown to have a significant impact on attention (Drechsler, et. al, 2020). Children with attention disorders often exhibit deficits across multiple executive functions, making neuropsychological treatment, such as cognitive training, a popular intervention. Research suggests programs that focus on specific cognitive deficits, such as inhibition or working memory, may show a greater reduction of core ADHD symptoms with more far-transfer effects than the more commonly used broader cognitive training (Drechsler, et. al, 2020). A study by Zhao and Zhang showed a significant difference in improvement to working memory and attention for the deficit-specific training when compared to results from a group that received cognitive training simultaneously for visuospatial WM, inhibition, and cognitive-flexibility (Zhao & Zhang, 2024).
Research has consistently shown the importance of working memory deficits in attention disorders (Veloso et al., 2020). Clear Learning Center offers children and adolescents a skill-specific neuropsychology intervention aimed at improving working memory to improve attention, adaptive cognitive regulation, and non-adaptive cognitive emotions. Based on Zhao & Zhang’s study, our program will use a software program focused on training working memory using 25 online training sessions (5 per week), each between 10 and 25 minutes. Sessions use recall exercises increasing in difficulty aimed at enhancing focused attention, with trained counselors offering weekly feedback to guide and motivate the participant. Previous studies using this program have shown improvement to working memory, attention, and adaptive skills, as well as a decrease in maladaptive emotional regulation (Zhao & Zhang, 2024). These results offer hope to children and adolescents with attention disorders, who struggle to achieve academic success and maintain social relationships and can be utilized by educators or at home, emphasizing the multi-model approach.
It is becoming more common for technology to play a role in intervention strategies for children’s attention disorders. At our clinic, we will provide a cognitive intervention that has shown promising results in recent research. By combining physical intervention with targeted attention intervention, each shown to be beneficial independently, we developed a BBT (body-brain trainer) exergame, incorporating video game technology with physical activity (Anguera et al., 2023). Developed using cognitive and cardiac algorithms, the game uses a visual search task to improve attention, a spatial span task to enhance working memory, and a task-switching paradigm focused on cognitive flexibility skills (Anguera et al., 2023). This 8-week program will include 24 sessions (30 minutes each) with the player completing different tasks throughout the exergame. This intervention has shown improvements in attention on parent-based assessments and through cognitive measures integrated into the game (Anguera et al., 2023). Prior research also saw improvements one year later using cognitive and neural assessments (Anguera et al., 2023). Children’s interest in video games and physical activity make this intervention one of our most appealing, with the improvements seen benefiting familial and social relationships, both playing a critical role in a child’s wellbeing.
There are currently numerous treatments marketed at treating the neurodevelopmental psychiatric disorder ADHD, many without any scientific basis. Our working memory training software program is based on the Executive Dysfunction Theory, which explains core attention disorder symptoms are caused by decreased functioning in executive control due to abnormalities of either the structure, function, or chemistry in this neural region (Johnson et al., 2009). Because neuroplasticity is at its highest in childhood, our working memory training sessions are an ideal noninvasive treatment to build and strengthen the neural pathways associated with these higher-order cognitive functions, enhancing the working memory skill to decrease inattention.
Anguera, J. A., Rowe, M. A., Volponi, J. J., Elkurdi, M., Jurigova, B., Simon, A. J., Anguera-Singla, R., Gallen, C. L., Gazzaley, A., & Marco, E. J. (2023). Enhancing Attention in Children Using an Integrated Cognitive-Physical Videogame: A Pilot Study. NPJ Digital Medicine, 6(1), 1–15. Springer Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-023-00812-z
Drechsler, R., Brem, S., Brandeis, D., Grünblatt, E., Berger, G., & Walitza, S. (2020). ADHD: Current Concepts and Treatments in Children and Adolescents. Neuropediatrics, 51(5), 315–335. National Library of Medicine. https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0040-1701658
Johnson, K. A., Wiersema, J. R., & Kuntsi, J. (2009). What Would Karl Popper Say? Are Current Psychological Theories of ADHD Falsifiable? Behavioral and Brain Functions, 5(1), 15. https://doi.org/10.1186/1744-9081-5-15
Reuben, C., & Elgaddal, N. (2024). Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder in Children Ages 5-17 Years: United States, 2020-2022 Key findings Data from the National Health Interview Survey. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db499.pdf
Veloso, A., Vicente, S. G., & Filipe, M. G. (2020). Effectiveness of Cognitive Training for School-Aged Children and Adolescents With Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: A Systematic Review. Frontiers in Psychology, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02983
Zhao, D., & Zhang, J. (2024). The Effects of Working Memory Training on Attention Deficit, Adaptive and Non-adaptive Cognitive Emotion Regulation of Children with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). BMC Psychology, 12(1). BMC Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-024- 01539-6