Re: Play Attention

"Jan" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

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http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-dshealth3825685jun01,0,1338326.story
High-tech tools focus on ADHD

BY JAMIE TALAN
STAFF WRITER

June 1, 2004

The 9-year-old girl stares at a bird on a computer screen and focuses hard

to

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make it fly. As her attention locks onto the bird, it wings its way across

the

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screen, going higher and higher. When the bird slows or drops a few

inches, the

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psychologist at her side makes her aware that she is tapping her hand and
fidgeting. When she stops moving, she regains her focus on the bird and it
soars once again.

Kenneth Kaufman, a psychologist at the Institute for Behavioral Health, a
private practice in Commack, is banking on this new technology to help

patients

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with attention and behavior problems learn to focus and complete a task.

The

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program, called Play Attention, is new technology based on work by NASA
scientists to help astronauts strengthen attention span. It comes with

hardware

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and software that allow the client, who wears a helmet lined with

electrodes

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that record brain waves, to move objects on the screen with only the

mind's

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eye. Better focusing completes the task faster.

This sounds very interesting.
Look forward to hearing how it affects the girl long term when she is not
hooked up to the helmet. How many 'therapy sessions' would be required
to attain a normal level of attention long term? What would the
'helmet therapy' session cost? Can schools afford them? Appropriate
for home use?

Until then, children not taking medication will continue to focus on
things they are not supposed to be paying attention to and not on
that which they are expected to pay attention to.