The Mind Games Solution for students – from kindergarten through college – includes academic coaching of specific skills. Adults with ADHD may also benefit from work-related coaching.
Time, Tasks, and Memory
Most individuals with ADHD demonstrate obvious skills deficits in three distinct categories: time, tasks, and memory. It may be argued that a fourth category of organizational skills exists, but organizational skills are really skills for managing time, tasks, and memory.
The Mind Games Solution adds skills coaching to neurofeedback training. Neurofeedback training increases the student’s ability by helping them to focus and self-regulate while coaching addresses the specific skills needed to succeed at work or school.
Behavior Modification and Accountability
Neurofeedback is based upon principles of operant conditioning. Coaching on the other hand, uses principles of behavior modification. With behavior modification, specific behavioral techniques and skills are taught, re-taught and reinforced during the program until they become habit. There is little research to support the use of coaching alone as an ADHD intervention for students. However, behavior modification has been shown to be a positive supplement both to neurofeedback and medication.
The most important role of coaching for adults and college students is to provide accountability while time, task, and memory skills are being learned.
Coaching at Mind Games
A typical k-12 academic coaching session at a Mind Games Learning Center might begin by reviewing the student’s log of assignments. Students are coached to record every assignment plus a description of the assignment. After the student describes results from the previous week, the coach will then prompt the student to identify the highest priority assignments and explain when and how he/she will start work. The coach will likely prompt the student for specific task-related strategies as well. The session will continue with individualized instruction in math or reading and finish with 5 or 10 minutes of working memory exercises.
College students and adults are assigned an individual coach. The coach and the client will develop a set of specific objectives then meet for a few minutes after each neurofeedback session to review progress. On work or school days when the client does not come to the center, the client and the coach will make contact by phone, email, or text.