LANSING, Mich. — Millions of kids across the country struggle with some sort of attention challenge and while stuck at home during COVID, the challenges can be even bigger.but now there may be some hope for parents in the form of a gaze-driven gaming system.
For 9 year old Joey D’Leon, staying on track can be hard.
A lot of times its Joey, go brush your teeth, joey go do your puffer and it was multiple having to tell him over and over. So when mom Joann Lopez heard about the attention arcade, a new game system that helps kids focus, she was immediately interested.
I figured if it was something we could try and it would work and we could help other kids if it does work, why not do it. Joey is part of a beta test group for Brain Leap Technologies — the company that created the game system.
It comes with that black bar there that attaches to your PC. It tracks the child’s eye movements, and allows the child to control the game with his or her eyes.
The eye movement system and the attention system share neurocircuitry. Brain Leap Technologies CEO Jeff Coleman explains the science behind it.
"We are leveraging the eye movement system. It’s really hard to pin down the attention system, but we leverage the fact that they’re connected to train attention through eye movements.
In a new study backed by the National Institutes of Health at University of California San Diego, Coleman says they saw on average of 55% improvement in inhibitory control. That’s the skill you need to not get distracted and it’s working in Joey too.
I’m good at task initiation, especially when I write things down. He’s gotten better at being independent and just doing it on his own without being asked multiple times. I mean he still has days where it’s just days but over all much improved.
"When my brothers and sister are playing and they’re loud, there’s a 50/50 chance i don’t get distracted by them" and with Joey and his two brothers and sister doing elearning this school year, Joann hopes this helps him focus on his own school work.
His grades have been always great when he puts effort in. but he just gets side tracked a lot and so hopefully this year we will see that that has subsided.
Want to see more local news ? Visit the FOX47News Website.
Stay in touch with us anytime, anywhere.
Download our free app for Appleand Android
and
Sign up for newsletters emailed to your inbox.
Select from these options: Breaking News, Severe Weather, School Closings, Daily Headlines and Daily Forecasts.
