{"id":2855,"date":"2018-10-19T13:38:25","date_gmt":"2018-10-19T17:38:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/?p=2855"},"modified":"2025-01-28T09:18:37","modified_gmt":"2025-01-28T14:18:37","slug":"brain-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.shu.edu\/magazine\/2018\/10\/brain-training\/","title":{"rendered":"Brain Training"},"content":{"rendered":"
Jeff La Marca\u2019s research indicates that neurofeedback training may help students with ADHD.<\/div><\/div>\n

Jeff La Marca knows what it\u2019s like to feel distracted. After struggling with focus and concentration issues for much of his life, when he was 40 he was diagnosed with ADHD: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. At 50, he started a doctoral program at the University of California, Riverside.<\/p>\n

Now an assistant professor of special education at Seton Hall University, La Marca wants to help others with ADHD find their focus \u2014 and he says neurofeedback may be the answer.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a treatment many people haven\u2019t heard of before, or have trouble envisioning even if they have. In fact, as far as La Marca knows, he\u2019s one of very few educators whose research centers on neurofeedback. (Most people testing it are clinical psychologists, sleep doctors or other medical professionals, he says.)<\/p>\n

Also known as electroencephalogram (EEG) biofeedback, neurofeedback aims to change behavior by changing brain activity. As La Marca has used it in his studies, sensors attached to the head monitor brain waves while the person plays a computer game. When the brain focuses in the right way, the game responds with rewards.<\/p>\n

La Marca believes that this training may be able to help kids with the inattentive type of ADHD \u2014 and to a lesser extent, those with hyperactivity \u2014 by teaching their brains how to focus. He recently completed a study at Seton Hall that appears to support this theory, and soon hopes to repeat it with a larger sample.<\/p>\n

If it continues to prove out, the neurofeedback approach could help millions of kids. In 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported, 6.1 million children in the U.S. from ages 2 through 17 had been diagnosed with ADHD. That\u2019s about 9 percent of all kids in that age range.<\/p>\n

Of those with an ADHD diagnosis, six out of 10 were taking medication. But often those drugs can cause headaches and sleep issues, suppress appetite, induce physical tics and even stunt growth. And for children with the inattentive type of ADHD, medication may not work at all, La Marca says.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where his work with neurofeedback comes in. After spending many years teaching in public schools, La Marca slowly found himself drawn to neurofeedback, research and academia. He jokes that the same year he received an AARP card as a gift from his mother, he started his Ph.D. program. But it\u2019s true.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it would be a wonderful thing to go back and do research,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of a creative thing, it makes a really big difference, and it\u2019s through research that we can confirm efficacious practices in the classroom \u2014 things to actually help students learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

For his dissertation, La Marca gave a group of fourth-grade students 40 half-hour sessions of neurofeedback and continually tested their reading proficiency. He says reading comprehension and accuracy both improved \u201cto an extent much greater than we\u2019d expect through either classroom instruction or maturation.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he tested the students again five and a half months later, La Marca found that they continued to show improvement over their pre-test scores. \u201cWhat that suggests, and what other studies suggest, is that these effects are long term,\u201d he says. \u201cOnce you learn how to [focus your attention], you always know how to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The problem, he says, is that his sample was only five kids. \u201cIt isn\u2019t large enough to generalize, but it was just large enough to say I observed an effect,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

After arriving at Seton Hall in 2015, La Marca continued his research with a 2016 Seton Hall University Research Council Grant. In that study, he brought in 14 Seton Hall students with ADHD and evaluated how controlling the \u201cartifacts\u201d that intrude on brainwave signals \u2014 eye blinks, eye wobbling, facial movements \u2014 might affect neurofeedback training. He found that the group that had their artifacts removed showed significant improvements in attention and were more successful in controlling their brainwaves.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think once other researchers and academics really grasp what Dr. La Marca did, this is going to pave the way for a whole new area of research,\u201d says Joseph Fresco \u201914\/M.A.\u201916, one of four Seton Hall graduate students who assisted La Marca in the study. \u201cThere\u2019s this whole other type of treatment that could help those who have ADHD. You could literally go to the gym for your brain by playing these games and help your symptoms of ADHD.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connie McReynolds, who directs the Neurofeedback Center at California State University, San Bernardino, is well aware of La Marca\u2019s studies and says his work will \u201cprobably turn out to be rather groundbreaking.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat he\u2019s looking at \u2014 which type of intervention is needed, what type of neurofeedback works well, how much neurofeedback is needed until success is achieved \u2014 is really the next level of where the field is going,\u201d McReynolds adds. \u201cWe know [neurofeedback] works. Now we need to figure out the fine-tuning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Soon La Marca hopes to replicate his original study with a much larger group \u2014 a hundred kids, ideally \u2014 and he\u2019s looking for large grants to make that happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf this pans out \u2014 it has the potential to greatly assist students with attention deficits and inadequate achievement,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd it\u2019s not a pharmaceutical approach, therefore we don\u2019t need doctors\u2019 approval to do this. That\u2019s pretty profound for kids with attention deficit.\u201d \u201cbut I\u2019d also say we\u2019re not done yet.\u201d<\/p>\n

Molly Petrilla is a freelance based in New Jersey. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jeff La Marca\u2019s research indicates that neurofeedback training may help students with ADHD.<\/p>\n

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