Yosef felt discouraged. His family had moved overseas at a crucial time in his young life. Now in high school, Yosef was finding his adjustment to learning in a foreign country to be challenging at best. Although his parents had taken care to enroll him in an English-language school, mastering a new system of matriculation exams was overwhelming. Yosef had always had trouble concentrating in class, and feared he would fall behind.
Sue, Yosef’s mother, describes Yosef’s struggles:
“Before we found the school he’s in now, he was first in a school that didn’t spot any difficulty even though Yosef was struggling. The second school had no patience for him and suggested we look for a different school for Yosef. No matter which school though, Yosef would come home each day feeling extremely frustrated. At times he would complain bitterly about his teachers, blaming them for his difficulties. Other times he would exclaim that he was simply unable to learn and that it was all hopeless.”
Regardless, Yosef noticed how his inability to concentrate in class was reflected in his grades. He wanted to improve but wasn’t sure how. Finally he asked his parents for help.
His parents had him tested for different issues but could not find the source of the problem. Test results showed that Yosef had a good memory, and was actually very bright in certain areas. They were stumped.
Then one day, says Sue, “I saw an advert for ‘ADHD No More’. We called the number and spoke to Miriam Eri, who uses the Play Attention system in her work. We were invited for a free trial. Yosef was almost desperate to find something to help him. He had even asked me at one stage if I thought he needed Ritalin. The meeting with Miriam was very interesting… [we were] shown how the system works—with Yosef having to concentrate to make the computer characters move successfully. He was quite fascinated by the system”
Now it’s been almost four months since Yosef started the program, and Sue is thrilled.
She says, “Yosef in the past has given up things with little or no patience. He tends to get bored by a lot of things—apart from being able to sit and play games on his laptop for as long as possible. But with Play Attention he is very happy to go to Miriam for a session; he does not try to avoid the sessions, and is always very proud of his results.”
Sue goes on to say, “We see that he has grown in confidence with his school work. He seems much more settled and able to focus on what he has to do at school and is not put off now with taking the matriculation exams, which at one time was something he kept saying he was not going to do at all under any circumstances. In fact, Yosef signed himself up at school to do some this year which we are very pleased about.”
Yosef has had a report from school which says that he has in one subject, “Steady improvement during the year.”
Another says, “Although Yosef can be disruptive at times, he has continued to excel in this class and show that he is a very talented and capable student.”
Also, “Good job in class”. Test results in one subject went from 50-60% to 80-90%
According to Yosef’s tutor, his reading has improved tremendously since the summer. “He takes on a new task with more confidence and self-assurance. What’s more, he is now able to complete assignments independently. He finished studying for one of the big exams in half the allotted time. Since Yosef completed it so fast, he can now move on to the next subject of his choice.”
His parents have also seen marked improvement in his behavior at home: “Generally there seems to be improvement in his attitude at home, although he still loves to sit on his laptop a lot. Like all teenagers, Yosef would get upset with us quite often. Recently we have noticed that even if he gets frustrated once in a while, it is short-lived. He is just a lot calmer in general. Also, he often needed instructions to be repeated several times. Now, if he wants to cook something for himself, for example, he will only have to ask once. He is then able to follow through without much further help.”
Miriam says, “The biggest improvement I’ve seen in my sessions with Yosef is in the area of ‘self-distracting behaviors’. He used to fidget quite a lot. At the first session his movements practically distracted him every second. Now he can play the games pretty much continuously until the end without his focus breaking. His attention scores went from the initial 65-70% to 85-95%!!!”
Within a short time, Yosef mastered all beginner level games and some of the intermediate levels as well. After training for merely 4 months, he is doing great during the sessions, and—as we can see—in school and at home as well. We have plans to fine tune his short term memory by using the new games Play Attention developed. We would like to work hisAcademicBridge scores up to par with his game scores—until full transfer to real life activities is reached.
It is heartwarming to see how Yosef has gained so much from the training in such a short time.
According to Yosef, “The biggest benefit so far is that I can sit without moving and listen in school—even if the subject is less interesting. I’m excited to go on with the training and play on the rest of the games as well!”