Our son Luke aged 8 years started using Play Attention on 26/12/15 to present. Due to work commitments increasing and travel in our jobs, in the last 2 months we have not been as vigilant to the use of it as we have been previously. We are hoping to improve this situation shortly.
Play Attention has been a successful adjunct to his collection of therapies with positive measurable outcomes.
He is a dear, loving, and intelligent boy. His symptoms were very difficult to manage in the past, when we did not know what we were dealing with. We had mixed reports from various sectors stating this diagnosis or that, and it has been a real journey separating the wheat from the chaff. We are becoming more discerning regarding therapy that actually works, vs therapy that mainstream medicine habitually offers regardless of improvement.
One of Luke’s main challenges was around task completion. He would start many well intentioned tasks with great enthusiasm, only to lose the momentum and the activity around it to die away and the task to grind to a halt. He became easily frustrated, and it was heartbreaking to see his impetus dissolve around a task he was initially passionate about.
Last Christmas 2015, Luke greatly enjoyed receiving Christmas cards from friends at school. He asked me to purchase some cards for him he he wanted to give his friends cards in return. He wrote a list of students to give them to and completed the cards. He then put some of the cards in his bag, and left the rest in different locations in his room, and around the house. When he found a number of cards in the bottom of his bag, well after the Christmas period had expired, he was confused to see them, as he thought he had given them all out. He became distressed at the possibility of not having executed the task completely. In disappointment and frustration he put any of them he subsequently found in the bin, with his self esteem suffering repeated and ongoing blows to it.
Luke has been experiencing steady improvement across many parameters this year. It’s been exhilarating to map where he has come from, to where he is currently tracking. We know Play Attention has been instrumental in this improvement with his reading, work in class, and comprehension. He used to do poorly in math due to being unable to read the question correctly. He would misread the question and not answer the question correctly. He lacked focus to concentrate on reading the words, and comprehend the meaning. His ability to follow a task through to completion was extremely limited. Christmas occurs just once a year, and we await Christmas 2016 to see if this task will be corrected. 6 more months to go to see what the outcome
will be.
Another task completion issue which has been ongoing, was Luke’s inability to complete his dinner under the period of 1 hour. This has been onerous to the family since Luke was a toddler, resulting in negative feedback to Luke on a daily basis. No amount of reminding, representing the benefits of getting on with his task of eating his dinner within a reasonable period, made the slightest difference. This delayed task impacted everyone especially the person supervising homework etc, as the dinner process literally ate up the time allocated to complete extra lessons, reading, school
homework etc. Bedtime was later as a result, resulting in a negative tone set for bed. This time should be nurturing, loving time, and not a struggle, and stressful time. To finally get him to bed and then have him demand repeated stories at 9:30pm was the norm. You can’t imagine how
exciting it was to start dinner, attend to Luke’s younger brother’s requests periodically, and to suddenly find Luke had quietly completed his dinner, and was ready for his dessert. We noticed this occurred on the days he did Play Attention’s truck loading task completion game. This game offered considerable relief to the family on those days.
As a general comment, Luke started his Play Attention journey, complaining bitterly about having to do the program 4 times per week for 15 minutes each time. This started after his honeymoon period of 2 months had expired. He chatted constantly throughout, usually negatively, about how he hates it, he can’t do it, and often deliberately staring away from the screen, or closing his eyes periodically. What he does do now, is start with a happier state of mind, often quite confident he will be successful in his attempt to gain a point. The reward system is very important to Luke, and he is SO proud when he thinks he has not attained a point, only to scroll down to find he has. On a personal note, it has been a journey of learning for myself to butt right out of his experience, and disassociate from his outcome. If he acts poorly, it is likely his outcome will be poor, and he must take responsibility for that.
Luke is not the typical child, and he does not achieve his goals in any way that could be described as conventional. But he is getting there more often, and faster than he ever has in the past. We are very grateful for the support and tips, that Mike from Play Attention has provided. It is so exciting to see Luke progress from beginner to intermediate in the games, and become more confident and more proud of himself, when he does so. We are so proud of Luke for pushing through and not giving up.
If you are looking to improve the attention of your family member with ADHD ,we consider Play Attention to be an excellent tool to assist with that.
Nicky, Luke’s Proud Mother