ADVANCEMENTS IN NEUROFEEDBACK THERAPY: IMPLICATIONS FOR TREATING NEURODIVERGENT STUDENTS IN ACADEMIC ENVIRONMENTS

With ongoing research and innovation, the future of neurofeedback therapy holds significant promise for transforming the educational experiences of neurodivergent youngsters.

- Dr. Sonam Kothari

For children with neurodivergent disorders, neurofeedback therapy, a type of biofeedback, is a noninvasive approach that may improve their cognitive, emotional, and behavioral skills. These students often face significant obstacles in the classroom that they must overcome, and students who struggle with focus, emotional control, sensory processing, and social interaction may find it more difficult to succeed academically as a result of these issues. Neurofeedback may be a viable solution that may help students regulate the activity in their brains and directly address the trouble they are experiencing.

THE PROCESS OF NEUROFEEDBACK THERAPY: HOW IT WORKS

Neurofeedback therapy begins with an assessment of the client’s brainwave activity. In other words, it is known as brain mapping which is done by attaching one or more sensors to a person’s scalp and/ or ears lobe(s). These are linked to an EEG machine, which displays the person’s brain waves on a computer in the form of lines, graphs or even a video game. For instance, what we see in the game may be a car moving or a ball coming up and going down. With the brain, the person is requested to make the line, graph or object to move. If the brain activity is optimal/desirable, the video game speeds up, or the ball goes up. Undesirable/adverse brain activity makes the ball slow down, prompting the student to adjust their brainwave patterns. Over time the brain develops new patterns thereby making the brain functions effective and reducing problematic symptoms. The Neurofeedback sessions may take 2060 minutes per training session and would largely involve alternating between training and break sessions. Depending on the student’s needs, the duration of the therapy may vary. Some students shows significant improvement in 10 sessions while others may require more.