Attention Deficit

The November 13, 2004 Boston Globe article, Playing their Way to Improved Concentration, refers to Play Attention, a feedback based learning system I created for persons with attention problems. It uses a video game format to teach cognitive skills typically deficit in children and adults with diffused attention.

I have always considered attention problems to be learning disabilities rather than brain damage (minimal brain dysfunction). In an evolutionary sense, people with diffused attention have always existed among us. In primitive times, they were likely the people standing or walking the perimeter of the camp fire while the rest of us ate our catch. Their orienting reflexes quickly triggered at the slightest sign of danger.

I synthesized my experience in education, computer education, and psychology to devise a system to optimize human potential. However, at the time I began this journey, my university training was of little help. None of my classes mentioned attention problems and therefore I received no training to assist my students.

The Globe cites that ‘…Peter Freer, who developed the product, used to teach school in West Virginia [actually Western Carolina] in the 1980s. Confronted with hyperactive students, Freer didn’t know how to help them. "At that point, at university level, they didn’t even teach anything about how to cope with these kids," he said.’

I researched experimental data from NASA regarding astronaut performance and attention. I founded Unique Logic and Technology (ULT) in 1994 to provide technology to educators and the general public.

As the Globe points out,‘Freer was trained in computer programming, and he wondered whether technology might help his hyperactive students. While researching the matter, he found that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had developed computer systems for improving the concentration skills of astronauts and test pilots. NASA scientists attached electrodes to pilots’ heads to capture their brain waves. They learned to identify the kind of brain activity that occurs when a person is concentrating on a task. Then they wrote software that lets pilots control images on a computer screen. The more they focused their minds, the better they performed. In the process, they learned how to how to set aside distractions and concentrate on the task at hand.’

I vastly altered and advanced NASA’s technology to make it appropriate for educational use. I did this by incorporating cognitive skill training and behavior shaping. ULT has been awarded three patents with others pending based on the advancements.

Everything we know about the brain indicates that it can restructure provided the right challenge is provided. The difficulty is that this process takes time. Play Attention takes time, too - perhaps forty to sixty hours of training to gain permanency. ‘Hours of practice can teach a child what it feels like – and looks like – to pay attention. As Joyce Bowen put it, "after you do it a couple of times, you develop muscle memory in your brain."’

Joyce’s child has rewired his brain to perform quite well at school. He no longer strikes his sister impulsively. He’s a normal, might one say, average kid - bright and happy. Sometimes it’s great to be average.