Your scores are automatically transported over the internet and stored in a section of our database reserved for you. If you let someone else do one of your exercises then their scores will go into your database. This could cause you to pass a task when you shouldn’t or a failing score could make you have to start a task over again at zero. Never let anyone do your exercises!
Task 1 - Basic Attributes - If you describe the objects aloud, you will help yourself learn about the different characteristics or attributes of the objects. To get you started - some of the objects are red, some yellow, some blue etc.. So, one of the characteristics or attributes of the objects is Color. Now you take it from there. If you get stuck just start describing the objects aloud to yourself again and listen to what you are saying.
The executive skills are so named as they oversee and manage the cognitive functions of the brain. They play a major role in information processing, abstract thinking, problem solving, initiation and inhibition. The executive skills organize, sequence, sort, group, relate, differentiate, combine, separate and many other operations with the data and information taken into the brain through the senses. The executive then uses this information to plan, reason, make decisions and initiate/inhibit responses. Cognitive flexibility is a desirable attribute of executive functioning as it leads to better information processing and hypothesis generation. Difficulty with initiation and inhibition is undesirable as it can interfere with responding or cause one to be impulsive and inappropriate in behavior. The executive skills interplay with the attention skills in determining the target of focus and keeping track during attention shifting and divided attention.
The Administrator’s Module is available via a facility level subscription to COM. This module allows the facility to keep a roster of students, to which they can Add new students, Edit student profiles, View their roster to get information such as student usernames and passwords, Select specific students from the roster for the purpose of creating and printing Progress Reports and performance Data Tables and perform an Administrative Preview of any level of any exercise in the COM system. The Administrator’s Module is automatically personalized to the facility and displays the name of the facility at center screen. The process of Adding a new student brings up a Student Subscription Registration Panel to facilitate enrollment of the student into the COM system. The student performance reports, automatically generated by our system when you request (by selecting a student and clicking a button in the Charting menu), are detailed and formatted for printing.
(click on the images below to see an enlarged version)
The attention skills of our brain allow us to focus on one part of what is going on around us while at the same time ignoring, to some degree, other things that are going on at the same time. Attention skills are necessary for us to be able to take information from our senses (like seeing and hearing) and transfer it into our brain for use in thinking, learning, problem solving and memory. We must be able to maintain attention long enough to get all the important information from the events upon which we are focusing. Attention span refers to how long we can maintain this focused attention. If a person has a short attention span then they might not be getting all of the important information.
Even though focusing is important we must, at the same time, be aware of other things going on, so if something more important than what we are focusing on starts to happen we can be aware of it and shift our focus over to the more important event. This is called attention shifting. Another example of attention shifting would be when we are tracking, for example, two things so that we spend a little time with one and then a little time with the other. Sometimes we must divide our attention and have some degree of focus on more than one thing at the same time. This is call divided attention or multiple simultaneous attention.
Sitting and watching for something to occur is referred to as vigilance. This is a process of maintaining our attention over a period of time while we wait for the something to happen. One way of sharpening our attention skills is to set up a vigilance situation and then train a person to respond quickly when the situation occurs. Feedback about whether the response was quick enough helps to train the person to attend better and respond quicker. Responding, by actually doing something like clicking a mouse button is called an initiation response. Sometimes, however, the best response to a situation would be an inhibitory response — which means responding by doing nothing. Impulsive people are poor at doing this. This type of exercise requires the cooperation of attention and executive skills as initiating and inhibiting are executive skills.
Our Track 1, Attention Skills is designed to provide training in all of these areas, one step at a time. In the beginning we work with focusing and initiation responses. We use the reaction time as a measure of these skills. Later in the series of tasks we start introducing situations that require a decision, initiate (make a response) or inhibit (don’t make a response), to sharpen the attention skills and train one to process information quickly but also accurately. Even later in the series, we introduce tasks that require attention shifting, divided and multiple simultaneous attention.
Task 1 - Simple Visual Reaction - This task can be completed in 10 clicks if you are fast enough! Stay relaxed and use only your finger to make the response. By that I mean don’t tense up your arm or body and let them get involved in responding, just use your finger. Keep your finger touching the mouse button at all times. Even though it is possible to finish in 10 clicks, you are allowed up to 50 clicks. On the score screen you will see your reaction time reported in milliseconds. It takes 1000 milliseconds to equal 1 second. A score below 500 milliseconds is okay, below 400 milliseconds is good, below 300 milliseconds is awesome! But, if for some reason you cannot click that fast, you can still pass as long as you are continuously clicking faster on each click than your overall average.
Even though it may not look like it, you are still on the internet when your COM exercise is running. While all of the browser framework, icons and address bar disappear during a COM session, they all return just as you left them when your session is over.
To get the most from the COM system you should do your exercises while sitting in a chair, directly facing your computer screen. Your face should be no more than about two feet from the screen. When you are looking straight in front of you, you should be looking at the center of the screen. Your elbows should be resting on your chair arms or the table and you should try using only your hands and fingers to move the mouse, not your whole arm. Stay relaxed while doing the programs, even the timed programs. Open your vision up so that you are ’seeing’ the whole screen even when what you are doing is in one area. Better use of peripheral vision will help you function better in general. Also, you can’t be doing Instant Messenger type things at the same time you are working on enhancement exercises, so please turn other programs off during the time you are working on COM.
Talking out loud to yourself while you are doing your exercises is always a good idea! Doing this gives another way for the information to reach your brain. This helps with gathering information and can also help with memory. If someone is working with you (like a teacher) on doing the COM system, talking out loud can reveal to your helper what you are thinking and how you are doing the task. With this information your teacher or helper can discuss your technique with you and provide you with better hints.
You should always have a PLAN! Once you have read the instructions you should form a plan as to how you will do the Task. You should be able to tell someone your plan. As you do the Task (and maybe repeat it many times) you may find that you have to modify or change your plan so you can do better on the Task. Don’t let anyone tell you how to do a Task — make up your own plan. If you are having trouble making up a good plan ask someone for just a small hint that might help you to form your own plan. If you and everyone helping you are totally stuck then perhaps you could email us at info@challenging-our-minds.com and we could provide an additional hint.
Once you login to COM, you will receive a screen containing a Go button along with a chrome panel with seven little television like monitors. There is a monitor for each of the seven Tracks. To do your exercises, just click the Go button. The next exercise in line will load and run for you. Once you complete the exercise you will end up on the score screen where you will get feedback about how you did. On that screen you have the option of rerunning the same exercise or clicking on Home to go back to the Go button screen. Clicking Go again will move you to the next program in your assignment and when you have completed the last program in your assignment, clicking Go will start you over at exercise one.
When you accomplish the three consecutive passes on a level and graduate from it, you will see your progress on the chrome panel monitor, on the Go button screen. There is a monitor for each Track and each monitor shows you what percentage of all of the exercises/levels in that particular Track you have completed.
Once you have a subscription, you can do your COM enhancement exercises from anywhere in the world that you have access to an internet computer. Just go to our website and login. The system will immediately recognize you, no matter what computer you used. This means you can do COM from the Public Library, an Internet Cafe, at school, at home or at grandma’s — if grandma has an internet computer! Any computer that you use does have to have the most recent Flash Player plugin installed, however. If it doesn’t then you can download and install it free from www.adobe.com or just click the link on our homepage.
COM is a collection of computerized mental tasks that require one to use their brain in very specific ways to accomplish the goal of a task. Even though the tasks are presented in a game format to make them more enjoyable, each one is designed to address focused areas of brain functioning. There are seven different types of mental tasks in the system. We refer to the different types as Tracks, so there are seven Tracks and each Track will eventually contain about twenty Tasks. Each Task has three levels of difficulty. If a person gets a high enough score on a level of a game then they will get a pass credited to that level. All scores and grades are immediately sent to the main server, located at our facility here in Indianapolis, and stored in our database. When the person gets three consecutive passes on a level (that’s three in a row) then they will graduate from that level and they will not have to do that level any more. However, if, before the person gets three in a row, they get a nopass score then the total consecutive passes drops back to zero and the count starts over. Once a person graduates all three levels of a Task then they are automatically moved up to the next Task in line for that Track.
The seven Tracks focus on the following areas of cognitive functioning:
Attention Skills
Executive Skills
Memory Skills
Visuospatial Skills
Problem Solving Skills
Communication Skills
Psychosocial Skills
In actuality, most of the tasks in all of the tracks require the joint effort of skills from more than just one of these areas, however, we have attempted to emphasize the a particular skill area in each track.
An assignment consists of one Task from each of these seven Tracks. So, every assignment has seven Tasks to be done. A person should try to at least go through an entire assignment once per day, but it would be better to do an assignment two or even three times per day, at different times, not all that much at one time. If a person cannot complete the entire assignment (i.e. one complete assignment) at one sitting, that is not a problem. The system will remember where the person left off and start them at that point the next time they login. When one whole assignment is completed the system cycles back and starts with the first task again and so on.
A person can advance on the different Tracks at different rates, they are independent of one another. Therefore, a person might move faster on a Track in their strength area but more slowly if the Track is addressing their weaker area of functioning. Our research has consistently indicated that one gets more improvement in functioning when all of the seven areas are presented together rather than just focusing on the weaker areas.
COM was spawned out of computer presented, clinical applications for rehabilitation therapy for those who had experienced brain injury, stroke, learning disability, attention deficit disorder etc.. There have been numerous scientific publications showing the effectiveness and efficacy of COM and the clinical programs upon which it was based (i.e. PSSCogrehab Therapy System and Neuropsychonline Therapy System). Research on these, precursor, systems has been cited in numerous articles including Cicerone et. al. (2000). Evidence-Based Cognitive Rehabilitation: Recommendations for Clinical Practice. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation 81(12), 1596-1615. Many professionals who know and have used these systems think they are the very best and most comprehensive around and, at the same time, the most economical to implement, both for the professional and the end user. After many years of research on the effects of our interventions on both normal and special needs school children and two, very hard working, years of development we are very proud to offer this system for public use, today, June 1, 2006.