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We're getting ready to start CogMed with ds


Soror
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So, we're going for it. The Dr. who took over our NP's practice(she moved overseas) offered a discount for CogMed this holiday season (40% off) so we went ahead and signed up. Ironically or not I had just been researching about working memory and executive function again before he sent out his email. We decided that we had to at least try and considering the research it is one of our best bets to help him.

 

I'm finally delving back into researching again after (mostly) regaining my own health and having a bit slower season after a very busy fall. I bought Smart but Scattered finally as well, I think I generally do well at trying to teach organization as its my strong suite but I'm sure that I'm explicit enough. So far I'm really enjoying the book and I'm sure I'm going to learn some new tricks.

 

We've been back to his supplements as well. He had one of his best days ever after a double dose of Pyconogel. I don't know if it was related or not but I'm trying to make sure he takes it every day, school or not. I still haven't got the speech/hearing eval, I called one place and never got a call back and then life got insane, so I still need to pursue this. 

 

He had some wretched days this fall surrounding an illness but since then has been doing pretty good most of time. Some days I marvel at how bright he is and some it strikes me the things he struggles with. We've been hitting fluency with reading and math and there seems to be improvement, although I wonder how much is practice and how much is just time. I always wonder as well at how well the practice will transfer, like our practice with multiplication facts, will I really see an increase in speed with his problems?

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So which dc is this for, the 10 yo?  The research is good for the 10 yo.  Our psych recommended it for ds but even the research Cogmed puts up shows it's ineffective with 5/6 yos.  And I think it's obvious, they're just too young to operate the mouse and really benefit.  But a 10 yo, that will be interesting!  You know the other thing you might do is do some things intensively for 4 weeks *before* you do the Cogmed.  Cogmed seems to give *percentage* improvement rather than absolute, so it seems to me the stronger you start the more you'd jump. But that's just me being all theoretical, lol. 

 

There are some things Cogmed does that would be challenging to replicate at home.  I'll be very interested to hear how it goes for you!   :)

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I think it will carry over, and in fact the psych said that's what he likes about Cogmed even more than the absolute results.  The numbers might go up only a percentage, but when you stimulate the EF portion of the brain and work on it you get CARRYOVER and blossoming all over.  That's why people get these behavioral and functional jumps sometimes with VT, because the VT was bringing in EF work.  So I definitely think you'll get carryover.  

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  • 3 weeks later...

Quick update here:

 

We are 1.5 weeks into it. It is not for the faint of heart, it is hard and boring, it takes persistence, lots of it. I would not recommend it for the kid who is easily discouraged. At first it was way long but we're finally able to finish it in an hour after her adjusting it. Looking back I should have called her the first week and had her adjust it, we had a couple of days that were 90 minutes, but we made it through. Ds is doing awesomely well, actually he sometimes gets it right and dh and I are scratching our heads. .Some of the activities seem to directly relate to skills he needs in math specifically, others are more abstract. I can tell he has strengths in the visual that I don't have, which is informative for helping him with organization in other areas. It is of course way too soon to see if there will be bleed over into other activities and we've been on school break now anyway.

 

We're both anxious to see his pre-test results because it seems his memory is better.It will be interesting to see if my *feeling* is accurate. Dh was a bit aggravated to hear that he was at the upper range in scores and improvement because he is thinking maybe it was unneeded. Of course the kids that do this aren't the ones with good memory to start with, so that is not to say that it wasn't needed for him but there are others with greater struggles. Now we knew that his scores while not great weren't at the bottom. He obviously still has some difficulties that I can see in school, which is why we went ahead with Cogmed. I'm not sure if he is doing better because we've been more consistent with supplements (pyconengol and omega 3s) or age or what, but it is welcome. When he is sick it is like we are back to our worst days (I posted about that in the Fall) but that is the same with all of us, stressors tax our EF skills.

 

sigh, I edited this to make it more readable, I know it still needs more but I'm out of time :)

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  • 2 months later...

He continues to do great, it is phenomenal really. He still has bonehead moments at times but I don't know that it is anymore than normal at this point. He seems better able to handle school work and stay self-directed better, it is not on par with my daughter mind you (as she is like me and the opposite end of the spectrum) but soooo much better than where he was. It seems he is remembering more, although I would still like to see an increase in fluency he is better able to see his mistakes. I see him ready to handle a fair increase in expectations for our school year next year.

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I would further reiterate however that my ds is a compliant easy going kid. Cogmed sucks for all involved and you need a lot of patience and dedication, on top of a good attitude. It can be so discouraging because it always increases in difficulty. Ds did really well but even he thought he was "bad" at it, despite the fact that we told him otherwise, it just gets harder and harder, no matter how well you do. I can see a lot of kids not being able to finish it or just giving up or not giving it their full effort (I don't know that I could have managed to stay so motivated myself). Just be aware of what you are getting into if you sign up!

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Is he a fast processor? I'm increasingly realizing that processing speed is one of or maybe even *the* key aspect for academic success and organization. Even among my two kids with the same diagnoses, it is processing speed that makes the difference in what works and what doesn't.

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Is he a fast processor? I'm increasingly realizing that processing speed is one of or maybe even *the* key aspect for academic success and organization. Even among my two kids with the same diagnoses, it is processing speed that makes the difference in what works and what doesn't.

He is not a fast processor but not super slow either, IIRC 35%.

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I would further reiterate however that my ds is a compliant easy going kid. Cogmed sucks for all involved and you need a lot of patience and dedication, on top of a good attitude. It can be so discouraging because it always increases in difficulty. Ds did really well but even he thought he was "bad" at it, despite the fact that we told him otherwise, it just gets harder and harder, no matter how well you do. I can see a lot of kids not being able to finish it or just giving up or not giving it their full effort (I don't know that I could have managed to stay so motivated myself). Just be aware of what you are getting into if you sign up!

So how did you define working at full effort to determine if he received his reward?  You used prizes/rewards, right?  

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So how did you define working at full effort to determine if he received his reward?  You used prizes/rewards, right?  

I just kept encouraging him as we went. He got some rewards(smaller weekly and a bigger one for completing the whole thing) just for completion because it is hard and boring work regardless, I threw in extra daily incentives as we went to keep him engaged- like he got so much extra computer time per level he reached in each exercise, increasing exponentially- or I let him get into Daddy's secret chocolate stash :) (I let him come up with these but I determined the levels- I kept it where as long as he put in decent effort he got some reward but he really got rewarded big when he did especially well) There was really only maybe 2-3 days that he didn't really give it his all, that was the beginning of the last week IIRC, he really worked hard and I couldn't have asked for him to do better. Now, that doesn't mean he didn't have his moments and I didn't have some pep talks as we went, some encouraging as I could be and some more like- I know you can do better than that. I really had to watch his negative self talk, I kept on him about that and didn't allow it, I made him repeat positive affirmations too. I was there and engaged the whole time, this isn't something you can do effectively (IMO) by just leaving them at it alone! 

 

Of course I would guess it would depend on the kid as to how they would best respond. Like a lot of you I'm used to working very closely with ds with his school work, going on 6 years now, I know him fairly well and can generally reach him. Usually I'm just enaged and there but sometimes he needed a bit of a snap out of it pep talk. I should mention as well he is not a perfectionist (the opposite) and I would that is another factor that would make this harder for some kids than others.

 

As I said he is doing great, there are still things here and there he needs to work on but I don't know if he would receive an adhd diagnosis at this point, as I mentioned the quotient test they did didn't show it anymore, although I'll be anxious to see if the follow up confirms this. We still have some issues with sounds and I'm waiting on an eval for speech to see if we can pin down the reason for this.

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So not for the obstinate, slow, perfectionists, lol? ;) Where is my miracle program for them to get them to stay on task with things that are difficult and that they dislike?

LOL, probably not. My daughter is more of a perfectionist (like her mother) and it would not work for her I don't think, well there would be lots of meltdowns. Ds is a pretty mellow kid, a bit ironic I know as he is an active kid.

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OH, I remembered something I wanted to mention. Ds is doing TKD and for those not familiar they have forms(a series of movements) for each belt level which are longer and more complex as they go. His last belt it took him several classes to even get the basics, this time it took him 2 classes! 31 moves and he learned them in 2 classes, now they still need tweaking but last time he had difficulty even remembering them all. I think of course it is partially because the more he practices in general it will help but I think it is more than that.

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