Brain Tune-Up
Researchers in the Department of Occupational Therapy and Occupational Science at the University of Missouri are using neurofeedback to “retrain” autistic children’s brains. Children play video games while sensors are attached to their scalps; they are “rewarded” with movements on the screens and special sounds for concentrating and focusing. From the April 23rd Science Daily:
If attention wanes, the rocket on the screen slows, sounds stop and the color changes until more attention is given to the image. As this occurs, researches watch another screen that monitors brainwave activity. The brainwave activity is measured by placing sensors on the scalp.
“The more neurofeedback training given to a child with autism, the more often the correct brain pathways are used and the stronger they become. It’s like a ‘tune-up’ for a brain that is out of sync,” [Professor [Guy] McCormack said. “The brain has a lot of plasticity and, as children continue this training, it becomes engrained and spills into other parts of their lives.”
Neurofeedback technology was designed by NASA for flight simulations. It also is used to help high-powered executives achieve peak performance and to help athletes train their brains to ‘get into a zone.’
“The aim of neurofeedback is to enable children to consciously control their brainwave activity by being rewarded for their ability to focus,” McCormack said. “Neurofeedback can be compared to physical conditioning for the brain.”
McCormack also notes that neurofeedback is supposed to “regulate brain function.”
This is not, I think, a therapy for Charlie who so far has zero interest in video games. He likes to do online jigsaw puzzles but, when I’ve tired to get him to play video games (if you can imagine that scenario), he blinks dutifully at the computer screen, taps the mouse, tells me he’s done, and walks off. So I’m not so sure if neurofeedback using video games would be something for Charlie.
However, some of what is noted about what neurofeedback does to “tune-up” the brain—-Prof. McCormack’s comment about “being rewarded for [the] ability to focus” in particular—-intrigues me. I have been thinking that Charlie learning to play piano and cello “tunes up” (pun intended) his brain. Teaching him to play cello has been not only a musical endeavor, but also one involving his gross and fine motor skills: He has to learn to hold the cello with his arms, hands, legs, knees, torso; how to hold his arm and elbow too bow different strings; how to hold down different fingers to create the sounds of different notes. Learning simultaneously to read music has helped. The sheet music gives Charlie something to focus his eyes on and he can definitely read and pluck the A and D strings, and I think he’s picked up G and C too.
As I’ve noted, Charlie continues to struggle to learn to read. Many people have referred us to wonderful websites and software programs for teaching reading; Charlie has done his best to follow the letters and listen to the sounds and all, but his interest and attention have both been minimal, and he often indicates that he is overwhelmed—over-stimulated by the graphics and animations on the software. And yet, he has been able to learn to read music relatively easy. When Charlie sees a note and plays, he hears a sound that “is” the notes; when he sees the notes on the page and plucks or bows, he gets almost immediate “feedback” in the form of sound, of music.
As reading has been such a learning challenge to Charlie, people have seemed the most surprised to learn that he can read music. Indeed, some people have raised their eyebrows at the notion of teaching Charlie to read music; it’s been often suggested that he try to learn to play “by ear” (as in the Suzuki method of teaching violin). It seems, though, that having the sheet music to look at and focus his eyes on has helped rather than hindered Charlie on the cello, perhaps by keeping many of his senses engaged. While I’m not sure if playing piano and cello is “retraining” Charlie’s brain or “regulating” its activity, he is making music—-and the sound is sweet and good.
Tags: asd, asperger, autism, brain, cello, Music, neurofeedback, Neuroscience, pdd-nos, Reading, software, video games, violinRelated Stories
POSTED IN: Music, Neuroscience, Reading, Technology
10 opinions for Brain Tune-Up
CS
Apr 24, 2008 at 5:51 am
Musical notes are symbols. How does Charlie do with Chinese characters?
RAJ
Apr 24, 2008 at 6:23 am
Neurofeedback interventions have been used in the rehabilitation of stroke patients. Having a daughter diagnosed with PDD-NOS in 1987 (and who recovered) as well as both my parents being stroke victims at an advanced age (in their 70’s and 80’srespectively) I am struck by the similarities of treatment and outcomes in these two conditions.
Both conditions are the consequence of brain injury, ASD’s in disruption of early brain development and stroke patients in destruction of parts of a fully developed brain.
The treatment interventions that have the best documented validity are the same, all of which address the plasticity of the brain after injury (stroke) or disruption of early brain development (ASD). Intense early intervention using speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy are all interventions of choice in both the conditions. oth conditions respond to sensory integration and neurofeedback therapy.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17479145
If you read the medical literature of these two conditions, the bet treatment is early intensive interventions. Even more remarkable many stroke patients could meet diagnostic criteria for an ASD, an impairment in recriprocal ocial interaction, communication impairments and repetitave behaviors.
Kristen
Apr 24, 2008 at 7:58 am
My husband sent me this article yesterday and I thought you might be interested in it. It is about the blogger who was issued a subpoena in a case against vaccine makers.
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080423-blogger-bites-layer-autism-subpoena-quashed.html
Kristina Chew, PhD
Apr 24, 2008 at 9:22 am
thanks for that link—-have been working the ArsTechnica post into something else; it’s a good summary of the whole case. Very best—-
Kristina Chew, PhD
Apr 24, 2008 at 6:13 pm
@CS, I haven’t shown Charlie any Chinese characters. When I tried to teach him a few words last year, I did orally—-but you’re giving me an idea.
Daisy
Apr 24, 2008 at 9:32 pm
As always, I have to ask — what about the children with little or no vision? Autism treatments and strategies require so much visual, but my teen has Asperger’s and is blind.
Cliff
Apr 25, 2008 at 12:35 am
I have to admit, I find these kind of metaphors somewhat unfortunate, because it’s so… narrow in scope.
I mean, in these statements about the plasticity of the brain, it’s almost never mentioned that anything that is relevant to certain functions changes the brain. That’s called reacting to experiences. It’s also not as much of a universal change as these people would like to think, the basic tenants of the autistic brain is there, and no amount of “tuning-up” is going to change that, because the way of view isn’t being rehashed whole, which it would need to be to change everything. I mean, I can think of tons of things that would considering “retraining” the brain (too many to count, except in broad categories), and yet I’d still consider it an separate skill (though often an expansive one) and not consider it “above” in the implied “out-of-sync” if you didn’t learn that skill.
That’s taking nothing away from neurofeedback though, in terms of training certain skills. I’ve done a similar biofeedback, and believe that such practices in fact are (especially in a Western context) great fro training certain skills. But they certainly didn’t make my brain more “in-sync”, let’s say, because that implies a whole lot more than it should.
Cliff
Kristina Chew, PhD
Apr 25, 2008 at 1:25 am
@Daisy,
is there neurofeedback that draws more on sounds and audio?
@Cliff,
I noted the metaphors too—almost too many, “plasticity,” “tune-up,” “physical conditioning”—what would Locke say……
Ron Bass
Apr 25, 2008 at 4:26 am
Hi Kristina,
Two things—Have you tried Brain-Gym yet? Lots of info online. For the reading, try copying one page out of a book and recopy the text to four or five different colored pages—See if he reads better with a different background color!!
S.L.
Apr 26, 2008 at 6:44 pm
When I was a teen, I was dx with adhd & I had quite a bit of anxiety. One psychologist had me use biofeedback, and for me, it was helpful. I focused on a screen that “walked” through a castle. Same thing, if I got distracted or my mind wandered, I would slow down & eventually start going backward. It was helpful to me, to learn how to focus and concentrate. I think it will help some children–but definitely not all, and it will only help very specific issues/skills.
And, I agree with Cliff, as far as this being wrongly touted as some way to “tune up” the brain. For me, it helped a specific issue: my inability to concentrate and focus, in turn, it also helped my anxiety as well. But, those were single issues, my whole brain wasn’t altered. They make it sound like a child is going to walk away from this & be completely different, and like this is somehow directly affecting the entire brain.
Have an opinion? Leave a comment: