Improve Kids Focus with BrainBeat

There’s a new product on the market called BrainBeat, scientifically proven to improve kids’ focus through fun cognitive exercises and interactive games through the use of controlled clapping.  As with any skill, a person’s focus can actually be improved to help make him/her more successful.  BrainBeat’s computer based game, BrainBeat Conquer combines “cognitive exercise with synchronized body movement and coordination activities that involves multiple senses, and to provide immediate feedback with unsurpassed accuracy about their precision, which improves kids’ timing skills.”

BrainBeat  is geared towards kids aged 6-12, to help give them the ability to concentrate longer at home and in school.  Kids play the game Conquer to conquer different animated worlds while syncing the brain’s timing to absorb information more easily and increase kids focus.

Kids place a green button on their hand and put on headphones to hear a beat that they must clap to.  The beat is the same throughout each timed exercise.  To play, you must listen carefully and try to clap exactly on that beat.  Children are taught to swing their hands in a circular motion to create a rhythm to clap to the beat.  Although the action of clapping can be repetitive throughout the game, BrainBeat makes it interesting by telling you how close you were to matching the  beat.  You can either be too fast, too slow, or just right.  But even within these three categories, it tells you by milliseconds how far off you were.

To make each set even more interesting, there are different objectives  for each game.  In one game your clapping pops a balloon for each beat you get right.  In another, you splash colors of paint on a blank canvas to create a famed picture, like the Mona Lisa.  Later you will be a frog and catch flies with every beat…or launch rockets…there is so much variety to make keeping a beat fun.  BrainBeat  has many different unique games which make it fun and very interactive.

Improve Kids Focus

BrainBeat  is based on Interactive Metronome (IM), a neurotherapy program that uses attention and coordination to increase performance.  IM has been used by healthcare professionals for years to treat Autism and ADHD, but also used at many elite high schools, the US Navy, professional, and college athletic teams to enhance their performance. IM has also been used to help adults who experienced brain injury, stroke, a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, or other neurological disorders in a clinical setting.  There are over 20,000 IM certified providers in the US and Canada.   BrainBeat  used this Interactive Metronome method and refined it to make it more interactive and engaging for children.

According to BrainBeat,

“BrainBeat improves brain timing and rhythm through real-time, millisecond feedback. By training the brain to focus solely on a target tone in frequent, intense time-frames, BrainBeat forces the

neurons on both sides of the brain to talk to each other more efficiently. With practice, the areas of the brain that control functions such as attention and learning become more synchronized,

like the inside of a clock. In other words, the brain learns to focus on demand. In younger brains, this can be especially powerful. And just like riding a bike, it’s a skill with staying power.”

Over time, BrainBeat   synchronizes the “decision-making” parts of the brain to help quiet busy minds and learn to block out distractions and improve kids focus when taking tests or working on their homework.  In playing the game, kids are motivated through instant feedback, scoring, badges, interaction, and an animated tutor who helps guide them in their journey.

After every exercise, BrainBeat   delivers feedback to give kids their scores.  Kids can then use this info. to see how they improved in the next exercise.  Kids love the instant feedback BrainBeat gives.

There’s no doubt, kids focus when playing video games.  They love the instant feedback and opportunities to be the best.  According to Sherrie Hardy, an education therapist and creator of Hardy Brain Camp, who tested BrainBeat with groups of students at several Boys and Girls Clubs,

 “BrainBeat is the first product of its kind to offer brain timing exercises involving synchronized body movement and coordination activities that use multiple senses, as well as immediate and extremely precise feedback about their accuracy, which improves kids’ timing skills. This takes their engagement to the next level; and the gaming aspects challenge them the way they like to learn.”

In one study, conducted at the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Oxnard and Port Hueneme, CA, elementary and middle school students increased their reading and math skills by as much as 20% and increased their ability to pay attention, communicate their ideas, and manage their frustration by 30%.  Clearly, this new method of  “play,” though a bit unconventional, may be the key in helping your bright or focus-challenged child do better on homework, projects, tests, and reading.

Playing BrainBeat

BrainBeat consists of fourteen 20 minute episodes, giving kids the opportunity to conquer worlds, measure their progress and coordination, and learn from their advisor, Nigel.  Upon completing the program, BrainBeat can be used in maintenance mode to help kids keep their focus before upcoming sports games, tests, etc.

BrainBeat caught my eye because of its unique way to capturing a child’s focus through sequentially-timed learning.  My kids are pretty good in school.  They are attentive and really want to please their teachers.  But at home, I’ve noticed that my son’s attention span is short.  I repeatedly ask him to do a chore and when cornered after the third time, he says, “I forgot.”  I also noticed that he easily gets distracted when doing his homework, especially with his sister around.   As I thought about it more, I realized that my own attention span is not what it used to be.  With the pressures of work, my kids and husband’s schedules, working out, and engagements with friends, I have been guilty myself of forgetting a few things.

My 10-year-old daughter and I have really enjoyed playing BrainBeat.  We have gotten quite good at it.  Interestingly enough, my son, who needs it the most, got frustrated after tying BrainBeat   once and didn’t want to play again.  I thought he was embarrassed that his score was much lower than my daughter and I and he wouldn’t try it again.

I offered my son several dollars to use at the dollar store if he passed so many levels.  All of a sudden he was more interested.  It was a win-win because I knew the game would help him with his focus and he knew he could spend that money!  He accepted but soon became frustrated while playing and I realized it wasn’t because of his low scores that he was so upset.  The reason was because he couldn’t keep a beat  for the life of him.  I found this very interesting.  He could catch the rhythm for perhaps 3-4 beats at a time, but then would lose it and he had no rhythm.  He’d hit the hand clapper faster and faster, even beat it down on his chair.  Tears started streaming down his face.  I could see he had enough.

I couldn’t help but wonder how my son would perform in band.  In two years he will be able to join our elementary school’s band if he wants to.  He’d love to play a horn instrument or the drums.  But,will he be able to keep the beat?  I believe that BrainBeat may have helped my husband and I stumble upon a learning opportunity with my son.  It could be his age, I’m not sure.  But I do know I want to do what I can to encourage him to keep playing BrainBeat.  I can see how BrainBeat  can teach him to have better focus and to get past his own mental stumbling blocks.