Anyone, or their children, tried Cogmed?

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I've just been reading Torkel Klingsberg's book "The Overflowing Brain" (excellent book, by the way) and in it he talks about working memory training. His particular program is Cogmed, and it is used to help the working memory of all kinds of people -- my personal interest is in how it might help children with inattentive ADD.

Has anybody on this forum had any experience with this training, or for that matter, anything like it?

I've not tried it. I'll ask my husband if he knows anything about it. He has a special interest in memory training. He has dyslexia and ADHD and has used a lot of different programs that he feels have helped him. Middle Son and I have inattentive ADHD. Maybe we could try it, especially if we already have the book.

I didn't read the book but am very interested in a subject. It relates to a research paper that I saw recently that measured brain activity and concluded that "idle" brain i.e. when people are daydreaming actually have more activity than when they are directly on a task. and in addition it is a special integrating kind of thinking.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 180702.htm

i firmly believe that these information integrating processes in addition to staying away from the jun k info are the only way to survive more than increasing the working memory capacity.
with that being said i don't know an easy solution. me, my husband and son all have this problem. we both survive by "floating" over the info i.e. briefly look over before concentration on a specific problem. however i can not explain or train my son to do that since he is simply too young 5.5. i have started to ask him to re-tell the stories of just draw the whole story in a few points. that can make it easier to establish the method of picking up what is important and dumping the rest.

My younger son (age 11, not ASD but ADHD-PI and Dysgraphia) completed the COGMED program a few weeks ago. This was on the recommendation of our Ed Psych - it's the only program they use, as there is so much research done and evidence that it works. We were resistant to trying drugs as a first resort.

He made great progress on the program. The benefits we're seeing now are mainly improvements with math. He thinks he's finding his mental math calculation much easier. He also seems to get on with homework without bugging from us. In general he seems a little more 'mature'. He now completes 'Booster' sessions a couple of times a week, and we've been told the expect continual improvements for the next 6 months to 2 years as his brain settles into itself again!

Now our older son (15, newly-diagnosed PDD-NOS, ADHD-PI, Dysgraphia) has also started. We've just done day 3 so it's too early to tell what he's going to get out of it.

In general, the program is very challenging. It consists of 8 exercises per day, for which the student can choose the order. The aim is to keep the student constantly at their point of challenge, so if a student has no problem remembering a series of 4 elements, the push will be for them to remember 5. Once they can regularly remember 5, the computer will push them for 6, and so on. I have to sit with my boys when they're working, and I find myself looking away so I don't try to remember. I find it makes me exhausted after a day at work! It takes about 20 minutes to start with, increasing to about 45 mins. You have to do it 5 times per week for 5 weeks, so it is definitely a commitment. It's also very expensive.

I'm happy to answer any questions, if I can.

I posted our family's experiences here: http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt199906.html