Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional ADHD and interactive metronome

Thought this was interesting. DD is in occupational therapy for focus issues/poor motor skills and the therapist has been having her do IM therapy for part of each session each week. DD dramatically improved each week and then one morning I forgot to put on her ritalin patch. I sent her to school and then to therapy and warned the therapist that she was a bit hyper because of not being medicated. When I went to pick her up, the therapist had her doing IM and her score had dropped a dramatic 50 percent. She looked like she was focused to me but apparently it involves some degree of concentration and motor skills above just sitting still and looking at a screen.
Whether IM therapy actually helps a kid how to learn to focus or not (in real life situations), I have no idea. I just thought it was interesting having objective evidence of decreased motor/attention skills when not medicated.

Blackcat, sorry what do you mean " therapist had her doing IM and her score had dropped a dramatic 50 percent"? So you are seeing good results with IM? It is supposedly the trendy thing to use right now for dyspraxia and my son's therapy place wanted him to do one 10 day intensive (every day - 2 hours)of it (they said they were pretty sure that would be all he would need) for his dyspraxia. I haven't signed him up for it because it would cost me about $4000 up front. It is suppose to be good for motor planning, timing, sequencing - all of the things dyspraxics suffer.

IM isn't covered by insurance because it's not evidence-based.

Well this therapy place doesn't take any insurance anyway. Even for their traditional OTs and PTs. But, yes, I know it isn't evidence-based, which is another reason I shied away from spending that much money on something like that. if the money weren't a problem, though, I would totally has DS try it ...

I think there are a very limited number of studies but our insurance covers it and I figured it wouldn't hurt. She did improve a lot each session with the metronome (except for the session where she wasn't medicated, she went way down), but whether this somehow carries over to other motor skills I don't know. DD has had about 7 piano lessons. Her piano teacher was mystified a several weeks ago because DD had a terrible time switching back and forth between her hands (and she said she doesn't normally see that problem with kids, esp. kids as bright as DD) and now she does that no problem and can read music with two staffs, playing with both hands at the same time, although maybe it would have clicked for her even without the IM therapy. She's only had about 4 sessions of IM therapy and her score went up so much that she really wasn't making any mistakes so the OT talked about discontinuing it, but now that her score went way down without the meds I don't know if she'll want to continue or not.

DS tried it a couple years ago when he was 4-5 and never seemed to get the hang of it and never seemed to improve. Maybe he was just too young. It would be interesting to try it again and see what happens.