Computerized Progressive Attentional Training (CPAT) Program: Effective Direct Intervention for Children with ADHD

Abstract

We tested the efficacy of a pioneering intervention program grounded in a contemporary theoretical framework of attention and designed to directly improve the various attentional functions of children with ADHD. The computerized progressive attentional training (CPAT) program is composed of four sets of structured tasks that uniquely activate sustained attention, selective attention, orienting of attention, and executive attention. Performance was driven by tight schedules of feedback and participants automatically advanced in ordered levels of difficulty contingent upon performance. Twenty 6- to 13-year-old children with ADHD were assigned to the experimental group and received the CPAT sessions twice a week over an 8-week period. Sixteen age-matched control children with ADHD were assigned to the control group and participated in sessions of the same frequency, length, and format except that instead of performing the training tasks they played various computer games during the session. The experimental participants showed a significant improvement in nontrained measures of reading comprehension, and passage copying as well as a significant reduction of parents' reports of inattentiveness. No significant improvements were observed in the control group. We thus concluded that the above academic and attentional improvements were primarily due to the CPAT.

Computerized Progressive Attention Training (CPAT) vs. Active Control in Adults with ADHD

“…Only about half the levels of difficulty were reached in each task, even by the Bfastest trainees.Î nterestingly, in a previous CPAT study that was conducted with children (Shalev et al 2007) participants reached higher levels of difficulty. This could be attributable to a somewhat slower (but perhaps more sustainable) learning process in adults with ADHD compared to children with ADHD.…”

“…In a study with children with ADHD, 8 weeks of training with the CPAT program resulted in far transfer effects: significant improvements in academic performance and reduction of parents' reports of inattention (Shalev et al 2007). No similar improvements were observed for children in the active control group whose sessions consisted of standard computer games.…”

“…The training software for the attentional training group was the CPAT, used in Shalev et al (Shalev et al 2007). The software consists of four categories of computerized exercises, each aimed at one of the four functions of attention: sustained, selective-spatial, orienting, and executive attention.…”

“…The above crucial requirements are well addressed in the computerized progressive attention training program that was developed over a decade ago by Shalev et al (2007) for children with ADHD. The CPAT is derived from Tsal, Shalev, and Mevorach's multifaceted model of attention (Tsal et al 2005) that was conceptualized in light of Posner and Petersen's (Petersen and Posner 2012;Posner and Petersen 1990) influential theory of attention networks.…”

LearningRx Cognitive Training Effects in Children Ages 8–14: A Randomized Controlled Trial

“…Given the growing research base on the associations among working memory and intelligence (Cornoldi & Giofre, 2014), and working memory and learning (Alloway & Copello, 2013), it is easy to see why a majority of the cognitive training programs target working memory. Certainly, most of the studies do cite improvements in working memory (Beck, Hanson, & Puffenberger, 2010; Dunning et al, 2013; Gray et al, 2012; Holmes & Gathercole, 2014; Wiest, Wong, Minero, & Pumaccahua, 2014), but pretest to post‐test gains have also been documented in fluid reasoning (Barkl, Porter, & Ginns, 2012; Jaeggi et al, 2008; Mackey, Hill, Stone, & Bunge, 2011), processing speed (Mackey et al, 2011), reading (Loosli, Buschkuehl, Perrig, & Jaeggi, 2012; Shalev, Tsal, & Mevorach, 2007), computational accuracy (Witt, 2011), and attention (Rabiner, Murray, Skinner, & Malone, 2010; Tamm, Epstein, Peugh, Nakonezny, & Hughes, 2013). …”