Dr. Chevette Scott Alston’s Play Attention Program

This summer I ran a pilot program for ADHD students. The components used were to improve focus, working memory, and social skills. I have had a few years of experience using Play Attention with my clients and I chose this program to help with focus. There weren’t many kids. We started with six and ended up with three. The three that were left were all males who had a combined type of ADHD and were functioning within some spectrum of Asperger’s. None of the participants were medicated for the summer. They came in every Saturday to work with the three intervention areas. We interviewed parents for social skills deficits. Focus was measured using the IVACPT. Working memory and focus were measured using the WISC subtests for Digit Span and Letter-Number Sequencing.

At the end, the posttests for working memory showed slight...

Avi was always very active and busy as a young kid. He also seemed to have trouble learning letters in preschool. When Avi switched to a new school in kindergarten, his teacher noted that Avi could benefit from some of the services provided by the school. By the time Avi was 8, we had our official ADHD diagnosis with some mild learning disabilities. After trying numerous medicines as well as neurofeedback, acupuncture, etc, we finally arrived at a medicine that kept Avi calm and allowed for some focusing. However, he still needed additional help focusing. Fast forward to fifth grade. One of Avi’s teachers was aware of Play Attention since her brother is a principal at a private school in Florida that uses the program.

The teacher introduced the program to another teacher at the school who got enthusiastic and brought the administrator of the program from Florida to New Jersey to...

Ramya is very attentive in class and exceeded grade expectations!

I felt amazed the first time when I heard from Ramya’s teacher that she was doing great. I could see the happiness and confidence in Ramya, which made me happy for her.

Ramya always had problem concentrating on a task and staying focused for a considerable amount of time. I initially dismissed them thinking that it’s just a phase and will go away eventually. But as months went by it got worse. Ramya started having trouble with finishing her homework assignments on time. Even once she finished them after a long time, there would be several mistakes and incomplete problems. I had to remind Ramya to focus on the task several times, as she would be playing with her pencil or wandering off to do something else in-between. She was unable to sit and finish her meals in one place without out being reminded to sit still and...

Play attention helped my son Max (age 11) to improve his short-term memory and processing speed — the two important characteristics that kept him from from passing the gifted test. In spite of the the general opinion that short-term memory is something given and inherited, I was looking for ways to work on it. It was our goal to get Max into the gifted program at school.

I was lucky to find Play Attention and its variety of games that help kids to get focused, stay focused and ignore distractions. Me and Max decided to give it a try and started working 3-4 times a week. At first it was difficult to keep the routine and it seemed that there were no changes. But slowly Max started noticing that it became easier for him to remember things and do mental math problems at school. In four months Max got to the intermediate level in Play Attention and could remember and repeat sequence of 10...

My name is Shawn, and I’m a 10 year old boy in the 4th grade. I started the Play Attention program in July 2013, and I have completed over 40 hours of play time. Prior to Play Attention my conduct grades at school would indicate I needed improvement. I would also talk a lot and play with pencils and erasers in my desk. My academic grades have always been very high, mostly As with a couple of Bs, so my parents felt that some of my inattention could be a result of boredom.

My mom and dad were looking for alternatives to medications, since they felt that was not the best solution for me. When a friend suggested Play Attention, they decided that the investment in the cost of the program would be money well spent if it meant that I didn’t take medication with all the possible negative side-affects and was able to learn lifelong skills to help me increase my ability to pay attention...

Celebrating Student Success at Psych Matters

Luca’s story

Luca has always appeared to be a “bright child” but struggled to channel his intellectual capacity into everyday school tasks. This is true of many children with attention problems. They are bright but their grades don’t reflect their true potential. He found it difficult to ‘focus’ in the classroom but tried hard. So why was he struggling?

Luca is a bright student, but he became bored very quickly in environments that presented him with low stimuli. He loves subjects such as maths and science, but could not maintain his focus and would lose attention in the mundane classroom environment.

The change has been dramatic in the months following Luca’s introduction to Play Attention in June 2013. Luca has not only earned better grades at school, but has demonstrated a notable improvement in his sporting ability according to his...