Our new Interactive Metronome® helps us work with and improve the function of the frontal cortex. The fontal cortex controls things like impulsiveness and attention span, and it’s where the personality “lives”. It’s also where things like depression and anxiety are created, and for these children it’s the region in the brain that’s not working as well as it could be.
The frontal cortex’s function is like how the brakes work on a car. If the brakes aren’t operating on a car, they can’t be applied, and the car cannot stop.
And that is the best analogy for children dealing with autism and ADHD!
Using the timing exercise program on the Interactive Metronome (IM), it strengthens the region of the frontal cortex, like how lifting weights will strengthen a muscle. With the IM, you can do it with the feedback mechanism from the visual therapy and sound therapy, which causes the frontal cortex to work harder and process the information supplied.
When a child’s frontal cortex is deficient in these areas, and they enter a noisy playroom with bright toys and other, unfamiliar children, the frontal cortex has difficulty processing all of the new information. In response, the child will act out, act aggressively or withdraw.
We can mimic this type of stimuli with the IM, and with repetition, improve the function of the frontal cortex. And, more importantly, we can measure the child’s progress by using the IM. It records objective data from the timing exercises down to the hundredth of a millisecond, giving us an essential way to track the frontal cortex’s improvements.
In this way, we eventually “fix the brakes on the car” and give the frontal cortex the ability to control its functions.
And the best part is that the children love using the IM!
Sometimes we need to start certain children with basic therapies to ascertain their needs before moving on to the visual or sound therapies. Some need to have their frontal cortex built up with more basic therapies before auditory or visual stimulation begins, as it may be overwhelming for their system.
Once they start improving, we assess whether auditory or visual input will serve the patient better and start tracking the data. We also use neurological exams to find out which area of the brain is working less efficiently—the left or right brain—and we focus on that side.
One question we get asked a lot is:
What if my son or daughter hasn’t been diagnosed with ADHD or autism, but I’ve noticed that they have lost focus at school? Or—my child is not engaging with other classmates very well anymore? Can they be helped by the neurological therapy and the Interactive Metronome?
Our answer is always YES.
You don’t have to wait until a teacher points out your child’s lack of focus in class, or have a doctor give your child a prescription for ADHD medication before you bring your child in for an evaluation at AskDrKing.
We’ve already had great success with children in strengthening their frontal cortex using such therapies as eye exercises, smell therapy or sound therapy, but now the IM gives us the objective data. This is really what is going to send our clients’ response through the roof—therapies that are fun for the kids that also provide a concrete progress report for us to track their success.
By using the Interactive Metronome as a diagnostic tool, we can also help parents understand how their child’s control over their ability to respond to the IM’s visual and auditory stimuli is directly linked to the ADHD, or other special situation. We are able to show the parents the child’s score and how they compare by using objective data from other children in their age group. By using this comparative scale, we show the parents how their child is ranking, and how we can help them improve those response times.
If you would like to see your child’s working memory, attention span, reading capability and motor coordination improve without medication, please call us and make an appointment for an evaluation. Case studies have seen children with ADHD significantly improve their ability to interact with peers, engage in new motor activities without frustration, reduced aggression and impulsivity, increased reading capability and language processing.
AskDrKing is the only clinic in Orange County with an Interactive Metronome. If you would like a consultation on how the Interactive Metronome can help your child with attention problems, ADHD, autism or other special needs and potentially reduce their need for medication, please call us now on (714) 731-7680 or use our schedule a consultation form.
