Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Neurofeedback for ADD - week 2 and hopeful

Any updates from those of you using NFT? My physical therapist brought it up the other day as a suggestion for my son (without my asking - we were talking about our kids and one of his boys did NFT).

We are considering it, especially since we have a personal recommendation of someone close to us.

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Next week is the last week of NFT #2 for DS. He'll then have had 16 sessions with NFT #1; 20 sessions with NFT #2. At some point, we may have to return to NFT #2 for another 20 sessions in the future since we only pay a small co-pay, but nothing definite at this point.

The results - while perhaps not as dramatic as they were or felt with VT - have been impressive. When DS first started NFT, he could barely sit still for a minute or two in NFT #1's office. Today, he can sit still in the same office for 20+ minutes.

Attention span has improved quite dramatically. Meltdowns and blowups have subsided, though unfortunately not completely disappeared to be honest like I would like them to have! Impulsivity has improved. Self-regulation has improved considerably, though I also partially attribute this to the diet and the elimination of certain foods which trigger DS. In DS's case, diet is definitely part of the environment; when we changed the environment, we helped to change DS.

Unfortunately, I haven't seen a whole heap of improvement with sleep and getting DS to sleep or bedwetting - bugbears to me and DH. DS may need more NFT for this to improve, or this may be part of him that's staying with him. Difficult to say. If anything, DS's pg has come out more and he's become more of a voracious reader at night!!! URGH....I want him to go to bed and sleep!

DS started NFT in Aug and we noticed a huge break/tipping point around Thanksgiving. Up until Thanksgiving, we had a lot of oppositional behavior and also resistance to homeschooling. Since then, less of both, thank goodness. We also had a spate of developments around Thanksgiving and since then. It's very possible that NFT played a large role since DS's attention span had improved so much.

Did I mention that PGness has come out more? That's enough for me to be a fan of NFT. It's not a magic cure or pill and it does take some serious effort if you're going to completely switch the diet like we did, but it's hard to say it doesn't work at this point or worth its weight in gold.

Thanks for the update, cdfox. You mentioned that you had a lot of oppositional behavior up until Thanksgiving. Was that normal or do you think the NFT made it flare up?

I can't remember for sure, but I'm thinking your DS is about 7? Mine wet the bed until he was 7 1/2 and then, one morning, he was dry and has stayed that way (rare accidents). I have no idea what happened with that. The doctor said that bedwetting can actually be hereditary, mostly passed from father to son, which I thought was interesting.

I'm glad you found something that has worked for your DS. Sounds like things are looking up.

Well, the situation with my son was complicated for a bunch of reasons. First, we had to drop NFT #1 after 16 sessions rather abruptly since we were paying out-of pocket. So we had a two-week period between NFT #1 and NFT #2 (who took insurance) where DS was like an addict or bipolar and completely unreasonable/irrational. DS had just started to get use to NFT (and diet which had been completely flipped) and to end it so abruptly with NFT #1 caused blowups and major opposition.

Moral of the story here is to try to find a NFT who takes your insurance so you don't go broke and can provide x sessions that your child needs.

Second, with NFT, you're basically re-wiring the brain - from the core, from side to side, top to bottom, etc. Without NFT, a child's brain is somewhat like a record player getting stuck in a grove (or at least that's how it was explained to me by NFT #1). So it's not that a child willfully wants to be oppositional or irrational, but that they may have trouble getting out of that grove without NFT. Think Explosive Child book here.

Third, I'd say that it took until about Thanksgiving for my son to get his brain comfortable with NFT and for it to stick. When we initially saw NFT #2, they gave me a brain map that showed DS's excessive delta waves (associated with a brain injury rather than ADHD) and told me that I was quite right to continue with NFT. NFT #2 said that DS probably started to accept the NFT with NFT #1 but that it didn't stick entirely as evident from the excessive delta brain waves.

Fourth, in hindsight, I can say some of the oppositional behavior was, unfortunately, age-related (still is), but some of it was due to my son's brain adjusting to NFT and a new state of mind/reality where the left/right hemispheres of the brain were no longer at war so to speak. We had a similar situation with VT before DS's brain accepted the new reality/worldview.

Bedwetting - yes, DS is 7 and yes I heard it was hereditary too from my son's pediatrician in Nov. Of course, when I mentioned this to my mother, she then informs me that her younger brother was a bedwetter until 10 yrs or something. I kind of wish my mother told me this gem of information before - along with some of the eg gems about him and her sister - but what can you say?

Things are looking up? Well, I hope so. After 7 years of various specialists, therapies, interventions, and misdiagnoses, I'm a bit spent. It's exhausting. Still, I always hope others can benefit from our experience and NFT is still relatively new to most people.

One of the benefits of NFT, especially for those who like objective/empirical data, is that you actually can get evidence of improvement with brain maps. When DS started with NFT #2, his excessive delta waves dropped by half from the end of Oct to the middle of Dec. His low beta brain waves also increased during this time as well. So it's not something subjective. You get actually compare brain wave activity over periods of time. And then you can explain why a child is behaving so differently or why his behavior is so improved due to the increases/decreases in brain wave activity. With other therapies, this just isn't possible or viable.

I have an update too, my DD is still doing great, she just seems so much more comfortable in her skin and she smiles a lot more. She is making better choices and taking better care of herself of her own volition (diet, exercise, sleep, etc), she is so much more fun to be around these days. She has set some serious goals for herself and she is working towards them. (YAY!)

All that said, I was so impressed with the turnaround that I started to do more research and I found a system that takes the guesswork out - it trains the whole brain simultaneously so there is no risk of over-training one area. That was my biggest concern about finding a super experienced practitioner and even then hoping they didn't screw up.

The system is called NerOptimal by Zengar. I have decided to buy the system and open my own office so I can make it available to as many people as possible. Since I am not a therapist or doctor, I will just be offering this as a stress relief training program during hours that I am not at my real job. The company also sells personal units that you can use at home yourself but they are pretty pricey.

The research coming out is very encouraging. The really exciting news is that the American Association of Pediatrics has now moved biofeedback (same thing as neurofeedback) to "level one best support" for Attentional and Hyperactive disorders, making it on par with Ritalin. See the 6th bullet down on the AAP website:
http://www.aap.org/en-us/advocacy-a...tal-Health/Pages/Primary-Care-Tools.aspx

I wish I could do this. I would love to buy the equipment and operate it on a pt basis. May happen some day. I'm very happy that you can do it, Nik.

I know DS's 1st neurofeedback provider trained a number of parents to do neurofeedback on their children. I know the equipment was pricey, but that these parents ended up buying it because they were in remote areas and could then Skype with DS's neurofeedback provider. I bought the CES (cranial electrotherapy stimulator), which can help when you're driving through rush hour and it's very stressful. I didn't buy the Roshi machine either, but I heard that can work as a stress reliever too.

AAP is really behind the eightball with neurofeedback. Imo, they should be recommending neurofeedback 1st before medication or anything else. If they suspect ADHD or something else, you should get a brain wave activity map. In our case, I would have saved ourselves a lot of time, money, aggravation, and a misdiagnosis of ADHD.

It's very annoying and frustrating that neurofeedback could have given us a definitive answer on whether our DS had ADHD and what was going on, but no one had a clue what neurofeedback was or recommended it to us. That's why these discussion boards are so vital for 2e parents in particular.

Neurofeedback has really helped with DS too. He's calmer than he was. I'm thinking though that he might need another 10 sessions in the summer. DS is still a bit impulsive, inattentive, and distracted easily. He's still a bit scattered. I still cannot get him to get up, get dressed, brush teeth, do his 'work', etc.; bear in mind DS is 7 and had a brain injury rather than ADHD. I'm thinking that DS's plagiocephaly was severe (he wore two helmets as a baby, nearly three) and thus the brain wave activity (excessive delta brain waves) became rather intractable. Despite this fact, DS is pg and radically accelerating through curriculums, when I actually get him to sit down, pay attention, and do his 'work'.

I wish we could have done 20 sessions with the 2nd neurofeedback, but the rule is 10 weeks, probably due to insurance. After doing neurofeedback for 10 weeks, you take a six-month break before resuming another 10-week session. Since the insurance covers the neurofeedback at this practice, I'll play the game and follow the rules but no one said I had to like it.

Studies on neurofeedback (for ADHD, Asperger's, ASD) referenced by nih pubmed:

- "Efficacy of neurofeedback treatment in ADHD: the effects on inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity: a meta-analysis" Clin EEG Neurosci 2009 Netherlands http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19715181
- "Neurofeedback outcomes in clients with Asperger's syndrome" Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback 2010 Canada http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19908142
(Pardon a layman's question - does nih pubmed reference only peer-reviewed studies?)

There is also a review re. ASD:

- "Neurofeedback for autistic spectrum disorder: a review of the literature" Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback 2010 US http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19856096

Well, it has been a super long time and I just came across my log in info so I thought I would post a 2 year follow up for the benefit of anyone who winds up on this post after searching neurofeedback.

My DD is still doing GREAT!!! She has had some follow up Sessions using my NeurOptimal® system (because she can). She enrolled herself in Community college, passed her Freshman English class, Clepped out of the rest of the English classes and she is set to graduate this year. WooHoo! She also has a part time job and has been taking Karate and helping teach the children's classes. She will get her Black belt this year too! She has made friends, has discovered an artistic talent and just has a love of life again. This all could have gone so very differently for her, I feel so thankful that we found neurofeedback.

I have now been seeing people in my office for almost 3 years and so far everyone has seen benefit. Fairly quickly too, within 3 to 15 sessions. I am doing my best to make it affordable to anyone who wants it. I have even been known to barter when necessary .

It is so rewarding to see the shifts in people's lives no matter what they come in with. I bought a second system so parents can train at the same time as their children, the transformations for both are remarkable (mom stresses out less about child, child can sense that, they both bond in a new way etc). Really wonderful stuff!

I also bought 2 Personal systems which I rent out for home training, this makes it much more affordable for families to train and for kids on the spectrum who may want to train more frequently. The results are just as incredible for the renters training at home as they are for people coming into my office.

I hope some day these systems will be as accessible as your local gym. Seriously, everyone benefits!