We have been hopeful for many years that neurofeedback can be used in schools.
If you help children and adolescents learn better, learn to attend, and learn self-control, the societal impact could be amazing.
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We have been hopeful for many years that neurofeedback can be used in schools.
If you help children and adolescents
learn better, learn to attend, and learn self-control, the societal
impact could be amazing. Many therapists report clients who see them
and say things, such as "you helped me change my life" or "God knows
what would have happened if I hadn't done the brain training." Seben
Fisher, a wonderful psychotherapist who works with a lot of very
troubled clients, points out that some of these clients would be in
prison if we couldn't help them.

We've seen a number of schools
integrate neurofeedback, only to lose it later. There isno real major
school program we know of, though there are a some schools using it
individually. We'll describe to you the most successful project ever
in schools with neurofeedback in Yonkers, NY. Click HERE to learn more about this project, which is no longer active.
There are serious questions about who
in a school is qualified and trained to do neurofeedback with the most
difficult kids. Are these clinical issues or school issues? It seems
the schools have to deal with the problem kids anyway, whether it's
special education or mainstream. How can teachers control these kids
without first teaching them how to calm down and regulate their brain?
Neurofeedback performs that role extremely well.
School Challenges
There have been other schools - individual schools, not systems - that
have periodically included neurofeedback. Some have been successful
for a while. But many programs have come and gone. Here are some
observations why problems occur:
- Competition for resources.
Usually, someone who works for the school system is selected to do
neurofeedback - in addition to his/her existing responsibilities.
That's a no-win situation. To do neurofeedback well, there's a
significant learning curve. To do it right, there must be a commitment
at a high level - perhaps with lobbying from parent groups or getting a
local politician behind the project.In Yonkers, they finally were able
to have a dedicated staff person to run neurofeedback - supervised by
Dr. Mary Jo Sabo, who didn't work for the school system. That worked.
Since there's a significant learning curve for neurofeedback, most
schools simply don't have the expertise to handle it. The program needs
to be managed and supervised by an outside clinician who's already very
experienced with the target population.
- Studies.
Individual health professionals use neurofeedback every day to work
with difficult kids. There are studies and plenty of clinical
experience. But there's no study that really shows the payback to
schools, even if the treatment itself works. It's hard to get buy-in
from top school officials without a clear payback to the system. There
are many ways it will pay back - but a study needs to be done to show
it. Until a fairly major organization comes in and funds such a school
project, it's going to be difficult in many school systems to sustain
the use of neurofeedback - when funds are so scarce.
- Project coordination.
We've already mentioned the need to have a dedicated staff person - an
incredibly hard thing to achieve in most schools. It's not enough.
There need to be coordinated efforts on how it will be used in the
school. The Yonkers Project with Linda Vergara and Mary Jo Sabo really
developed a program showing how neurofeedback could integrate into the
school environment. It took them several years. To do that again
requires commitment at a high level. They had school board support.
Without that, it would be difficult to sustain the success of any
school project.
Conclusion: There is huge
potential for use in schools. It can reduce special education budgets
by allowing some kids to be mainstreamed. It can cut down on serious
disruptions. But it's hard to build a grass-roots effort in the long
term. Going the volunteer route makes it very, very difficult to
succeed. Some high level support really should be obtained on the
front end. That's more important than learning the neurofeedback itself.
Creating a school program:
- Get it to stick. Our
recommendation is to get a consortium of parents, teachers, and
administrators, a school board member - even local politicians to come
out in support of the project. Think about not just how it can help,
but how the school can justify it. In Yonkers, they saw an increase in
average number of days attending per year, which translated into more
dollars for the school. They felt a calmer school (they often targeted
aggressive kids with neurofeedback) contributed to increased
attendance.
- Focus on costs.
With "No Child Left Behind", neurofeedback can help some of the most
difficult kids become much more able to mainstream and improve
performance. If kids are in special programs, it's been shown that
neurofeedback training can at times help them move back into the
mainstream program. That's a huge savings. Some teachers' assistants
for children with autism have been made unnecessary as kids improved
and were able to self-manage themselves. The reduction in costs to
special education or special needs programs should pay for itself many
times over. These are the same kids that individual clinicians using
neurofeedback have seen for years and have succeeded with - from severe
learning problems, to out of control behavior, to developmental
problems. It will succeed in a school with the same kids - if the
staff doing neurofeedback are well-trained and well-supervised and have
the time to do it. But these are the hardest kids to work with, so the
level of training, supervision and time commitment must be there from
Day 1.
- Assume any school program needs to prove the success of the program
- no matter what the current support. The first year should be a
clearly defined pilot, with goals that support long term
implementation. You will need to enlist a local or state university to
help support the research side - defining and writing up the goals in a
way that can be presented to the school administrator or school board.
This could be from the education department, educational psychology,
special education, or the psychology department.What about the
research for neurofeedback in schools? This is an often asked question.
Use the research that already exists. Point out it's being used
clinically far beyond these options. Schools don't need to prove
neurofeedback works. There's research, there's books, there's good
explanations.
- Bring in a knowledgeable clinician who
can meet with all the parties interested in supporting the project. If
you don't have one locally, bring in one from a distance. Once people
understand how neurofeedback works, it makes sense to them. Let
someone explain it who already understands it well and has professional
credentials. This is part of the team approach.
- Get some funding. There
are many not-for-profit funding options in every state.There could be
funds in the Special Education program targeted to this project without
having to write a funding grant. That obviously requires some
significant support. If you get the parents association interested,
someone in the group might have knowledge of funding sources or grant
writing. Also, if you find the right university to support it, they
are also used to writing grant proposals.
The funding is necessary.
The equipment is a minor cost compared to the supervision and
staffing. Recognize that it will take time and at least one dedicated
staff person to do it right - not a volunteer, along with a
knowledgeable neurofeedback supervisor. The staff person could be
someone from outside the school who is trained in neurofeedback but
contracting to the school,until the pilot is done. It's possible
someone from the school can do it part time, but the pressures over
time make that difficult to succeed. And they will still need
extensive supervision.
The best supervision is not always
local. Your goal is to find good supervisors who are great teachers
and clinicians. Some of the work can be done on the phone. On-site
visits may only be needed once a month once the program gets going.
Getting outside help regarding neurofeedback
If you get the right support to make this project viable,
there are professionals in the field who are interested in helping make
these projects work. They are knowledgeable about neurofeedback, but
also about the requirements of accomplishing this kind of project. If
you're at that stage, contact us, and we'll review the request and
connect them to you if appropriate. If you have a good plan, or even a
good team, they can be of some help. At some point, they charge for
their fees, because these efforts cannot be done with no budget. Their
goal is to help these kind of school projects and make them
successful.
reprinted from aboutneurofeedback.com
Authors Website: http://www.AboutNeurofeedback.com
Authors Bio:Michael Cohen, founder of AboutNeurofeedback.com, is Director of Training and President of the
Center for Brain Training. He has specialized in Applied Psychophysiology and EEG Biofeedback for over ten years.
As Director of Education for EEG Spectrum, one of the main training organizations in this field, Mike organized and taught courses around the world to psychologists, therapists and MD’s on the use of neurofeedback. He helped organize and teach courses introducing neurofeedback to psychiatrists at the annual American Psychiatric Association conference. He has also taught neurofeedback at many of the annual industry conferences.
Mike has served on the Board of Directors for two of the main organizations in the field of neurofeedback. He has produced over 36 monthly audio CD interviews with top people in the field of neurofeedback and related fields. Called the Phone Forum, the CDs are distributed to neurofeedback professionals around the world.
The Phone Forum targets clinicians who've already been trained in neurofeedback. It's a very practical one hour audio interview that comes on CD. It brings the experience and expertise of clinicians for PTSD, depression, ADD, autism, etc. - by really digging into how they apply neurofeedback protocols or other adjuncts to their clients/patients. It's been a very popular series, as it allows both relatively new and experienced clinicians to understand the rationale of some of the top clinicians, as well as other experienced clinicians.
Mike entered the field after neurofeedback training helped a close family member with major depression. That problem had not responded to any medications or even ECT (electro convulsive therapy). When he found neurofeedback and got his family member to try it, the response was remarkable - especially considering that nothing else had worked. Since then, his goal has been to make these tools more accessible to people who need it and can benefit from it.
For the last three years, Mike has been co-chair with Tom Brod, MD, for the neurofeedback CME workshop at the annual American Psychiatric Association. He is currently the secretary of ISNR, the neurofeedback/qEEG professional association. He's also taught workshops at ISNR, the Clinical Interchange and other conference workshops for the last few years.