81 Responses

1. MK Gates says:

   March 5, 2008 at 1:25

   Yes, He does inter­vene. And He always inter­venes for us because we have a heart to hear from Him.
2. MK Gates says:

   March 5, 2008 at 3:57

   I would like to see the com­pany sell­ing the prod­uct an afford­able price, $40. The com­pany would then be able to sell tens of mil­lions of copies as the word gets out what it accom­plishes. This is because peo­ple will then be able to afford to pur­chase a copy for them­selves and also buy copies for relatives/friends who would ben­e­fit from the program.

   When you help oth­ers you will be helped. Do not try to get all your money from just a few peo­ple by over­pric­ing the soft­ware! Remem­ber, it is drop by drop the ocean is filled. Just imag­ine how dan­ger­ous it would be if, instead of rain­drops, the ocean were filled with rain­gal­lons! My good wishes go with you!
3. Alvaro says:

   March 5, 2008 at 6:31

   Thank you!
4. Kanonklin says:

   March 6, 2008 at 7:06

   I am glad to hear that this can be used by 2 peo­ple, but can it be used by two peo­ple in 2 dif­fer­ent loca­tions, Kansas and Col­orado. I’d like to get this, and share it with my mom who lives in Kansas????? Thanks
5. Alvaro says:

   March 6, 2008 at 11:24

   Hello Kanon­klin: the prod­uct developer’s web­site says both peo­ple must be in the “same house­hold”, so I guess you can’t share it that way, since you’ll need to instal the soft­ware CD in one com­puter (which then may be used by 2 people).
6. Balooch8 says:

   March 7, 2008 at 8:19

   Alvaro:
   Thank you for your insight and intel­li­gence. I find it sim­ply fas­ci­nat­ing that some folks are actu­ally balk­ing at a $350 price tag! As an IT pro­fes­sional, I can assure those post­ing that $350.00 is extremely cheap for software.

   Take it from the mother of an autis­tic spec­trum child– I would be thrilled to find cog­ni­tive devel­op­ment help for $350!! Try the Lin­damood Bell pro­gram– $10,000 for a 6 week ses­sion. Or per­haps $3,000 just to engage Fast­For­ward? How about a $8,000–10,000 com­mit­ment for P.A.C.E./ Learn­ing RX? And the real kicker? You take a 2nd on your house so that your child might pos­si­bly achieve age appro­pri­ate per­for­mance. Oh, and by the way, not one of those orga­ni­za­tions offers any type of guar­an­tee for your $10,000 investment.

   Yet many, many par­ents are get­ting loans, bor­row­ing against their homes– any­thing– to get these kids the help they need to (hope­fully) hold their own in this knowledge-based soci­ety of ours.

   Any par­ent of a child strug­gling with pro­cess­ing issues can tell you that there is a rapidly advanc­ing, ever widen­ing chasm between the “haves” and the “have nots” in our coun­try– except now what sets the “have nots” apart is cog­ni­tive development.

   Yet the pro­grams PROVEN to be most effec­tive are cost pro­hib­i­tive for most U.S. fam­i­lies. With diag­no­sis of autis­tic spec­trum at a cri­sis level (cur­rently 1 in 150 kids in the U.S.), it is only going to get far, far worse.

   I don’t know whether this pro­gram works or not. I just don’t feel too much sym­pa­thy for those grip­ping about the $350! If it works for you, con­sider your­self for­tu­nate to have found a valu­able resource.

   Now, can we get back to shar­ing some more great infor­ma­tion on audi­tory pro­cess­ing and flex­ing those cog­ni­tive mus­cles? Mary Lu– you’re great. More insight?

   And MK Gates– I have no doubt that PBS and NPR are not your cup of tea. Per­haps the “mama bird” news (you know– some­one else digests it and regur­gi­tates it for you to eat up with aban­don) from Fox News is more to your liking?
7. GCH says:

   March 7, 2008 at 8:03

   MK Gates, it’s odd that on the one hand you’re say­ing this is a “money mak­ing scheme” and a “ripoff” as if to imply it’s of no value or it doesn’t work. But you then seem to say it would be a good deal at $40. So you appar­ently think it’s a good prod­uct at “some” price, just not the price that it’s cur­rently sell­ing at.

   Just because it’s on a “sin­gle” CD as you put it, doesn’t mean the infor­ma­tion con­tain therein is not wor­thy of a set price. Thou­sands of hours of work by very spe­cial­ized sci­en­tist goes into some­thing like this. How is $40 the appro­pri­ate price? A dia­mond is noth­ing more than a piece of coal com­pressed under high heat, yet peo­ple spend thou­sands of dol­lars for some­thing that’s “looks” good on their fin­ger and noth­ing more.

   If the price is cur­rently beyond your means, it seems unfair to blame PBS or the pro­gram since by your own state­ment, you say that tens of mil­lions of peo­ple would own it at a lower price. At the very least, it sounds like you think it’s a pretty darn good program.
8. Alvaro says:

   March 7, 2008 at 8:50

   Balooch: thank you for your com­ment and pro­gram overview…yes, when pro­grams are sold as a bun­dle with ser­vices they can become really expen­sive. We hope that over time prices will go down…as they usu­ally do as fields and pro­grams mature.

   And the real­ity is that, unfor­tu­nately, we have not seen high-quality research show­ing that those are effec­tive with autis­tic chil­dren. The clos­est we have seen is Teach­Town, but still with­out a ran­dom­ized con­trolled trial. Cogmed is show­ing promis­ing results with Asperger’s.

   GCH: thank you for your com­ment too. Good anal­ogy.
   Both: let’s not be too hard on MK…no one is per­fect. We all come from dif­fer­ent back­grounds, and all can learn

   Have a nice weekend!
9. Kirk says:

   March 13, 2008 at 7:58

   We have been a Fast­For­ward Provider for about six months and have a child with audi­tory pro­cess­ing delay. We cur­rently have over a dozen chil­dren in the FF pro­to­col. As a par­ent and a provider, the sci­ence behind this is REAL and we have been see­ing incred­i­ble results. Non-verbal autis­tic chil­dren are start­ing to speak, chil­dren are leap-frogging over read­ing lev­els and chil­dren who used to lash out in anger/tantrums are able to con­trol their emo­tions bet­ter. Due to the harsh win­ter, we have had chil­dren who have missed their pro­to­col and have been telling their par­ents they feel dif­fer­ent when they don’t GET to come to our cen­ter. Although the price may seem to be high, finally find­ing some­thing that ACTUALLY works and see­ing your child progress makes it all worth it.
10. M. Pace says:

    March 15, 2008 at 9:59

    “Kas­san­dra: You are rais­ing a valid con­cern. I will for­ward your com­plaint to the com­pany that devel­ops and sells that software-we have noth­ing to do with it!”

    It is shame­ful enough that PBS engages in this scam.

    It is unfor­giv­able that it would deny hav­ing any­thing “to do with it”.

    Obvi­ously there is a con­nec­tion between the PBS TV pro­gram and the mar­ket­ing of the soft­ware. To claim oth­er­wise is sim­ply not credible.

    PLUS I pro­foundly thank those who pointed out that the soft­ware is only usable through two cycles.

    It is a shame how far PBS has fallen from its for­merly noble status.
11. M. Pace says:

    March 15, 2008 at 10:32

    Balooch writes;

    “Yet the pro­grams PROVEN to be most effec­tive are cost pro­hib­i­tive for most U.S. fam­i­lies. With diag­no­sis of autis­tic spec­trum at a cri­sis level (cur­rently 1 in 150 kids in the U.S.), it is only going to get far, far worse.”

    This is com­plete bull !

    “All” you have to do is eat prop­erly, take sup­ple­men­tary mul­ti­vi­t­a­mins and mul­ti­lmin­er­als to make sure your diet is com­plete, exer­cise prop­erly, and engage in reg­u­lar chal­leng­ing men­tal exer­cise — for exam­ple, play bridge, do cross­word puz­zles … even the men­tal effort required to do folk-dancing has been shown to suffice.

    I put “all” in quotes because it’s not that easy to take proper care of one­self. BUT it is com­pletely within one’s con­trol unless one is poverty-stricken. Any it’s NOT cost-prohibitive.

    That’s a total scam by the peo­ple who want you to think that your brain will auto­mat­i­cally dete­ri­o­rate unless you buy their product.

    It is out­ra­geous and prob­a­bly ille­gal that PBS is in cahoots with these decep­tive profiteers.
12. Brenda says:

    March 16, 2008 at 12:04

    Does any­one know how I can still order the $365 Brain Fit­ness Pack­age from PBS? I can’t find it on thier website.
13. robert says:

    March 16, 2008 at 2:29

    i don’t like going to the gym to work­out but go because of the appar­ent out­comes from exer­cise, same as this i won’t like to spend an hour each day doing the exer­cises but know the out­come can only be ben­e­fi­cial. I bought the bun­dle and I am cur­rently using it and I used to be a com­puter pro­gram­mer, the amount of work that goes into this is huge, if they did not charge that amount how would they pay their staff, research, day to day, etc…
14. robert says:

    March 16, 2008 at 2:34

    brenda, just give them a ring an ding ding and order
15. Mary Lu says:

    March 17, 2008 at 10:44

    In response to M.Pace, 3/15–

    Balooch8 was writ­ing about neuro pro­grams for chil­dren with autism, not about typ­i­cal adults. So exer­cise, eat­ing right and doing puz­zles clearly arn’t ade­quate. There has been exten­sive research prov­ing the regard­ing effi­cacy of pro­grams like “Fast For­word.” Kirk attests to the suc­cess of Fast For­word in his per­sonal expe­ri­ence pro­vid­ing the pro­gram. (3/13)

    I don’t know any­thing about stud­ies regard­ing effi­cacy of the Brain Fit­ness pro­gram with “typ­i­cal” adults, but don’t be so quick to assume it is “a rip off.” The sci­en­tists who designed Fast For­word cre­ated the Brain Fit­ness pro­gram. Alvero, can you com­ment on the Brain Fit­ness pro­gram and studies?
16. Linda says:

    March 19, 2008 at 4:31

    I am a phys­i­cal ther­a­pist and I work with adults, many of whom have strokes, brain injuries, or other neu­ro­log­i­cal dis­or­ders. I would like to know if there are any stud­ies using the Brain Fit­ness Pro­gram (or Mind­fit Pro­gram) on adults with the above dis­or­ders. Many of my patients are ask­ing for more infor­ma­tion. Please cite stud­ies in your response. Thank you.
17. Alvaro says:

    March 28, 2008 at 2:25

    Linda: the 2 pro­grams with pub­lished research specif­i­cally for stroke and TBI patients are NovaV­i­sion (FDA cleared) and Cogmed (small pilot). Not aware of pub­lished papers in good jour­nals of other pro­grams for those conditions.

    Cicerone has done a cou­ple great lit­er­a­ture reviews, you can check them in PubMed.

    Mary Lu: Posit’s pro­gram is pretty recent, so they don’t have pub­lished research com­pa­ra­ble to Sci­en­tific Learn­ing. So far, they have one trial pub­lished in PNAS, with aver­age age around 70, and they have announced some ini­tial results from IMPACT, a very large study, that will prob­a­bly cre­ate media waves when published.

    M. Pace: my brain has lim­i­ta­tions too…and I really can’t see how to explain bet­ter that we (Sharp­Brains) have noth­ing to do with Posit Science’s pro­gram… we can talk about them, the same way we dis­cuss many other pro­grams, research stud­ies, trends…but are fully sep­a­rate com­pa­nies. And in fact we don’t sell their prod­uct, or any other. Bet­ter now?

    All pro­fes­sion­als in this thread: we have pub­lished our mar­ket report to pro­vide an overview of the field, the play­ers, and the trends. You may find it a use­ful pro­fes­sional tool
    http://www.sharpbrains.com/market-report/
18. Michael P. Williams says:

    May 28, 2008 at 7:26

    I want to offer one impor­tant note to those who may con­tem­plate obtain­ing ‘The Brain Fit­ness Pro­gram’ as a gift in return for a $365 pledge to PBS. When you receive the let­ter from PBS acknowl­edg­ing your pledge, you will find that the actual val­u­a­tion of your pledge (for tax pur­poses) is $65, with fair value of goods received (i.e., ‘The Brain Fit­ness Pro­gram’) noted as $300. How much of your $365 pledge actu­ally makes its way in to the PBS trea­sury will depend, of course, on what their actual cost is for ‘The Brain Fit­ness Pro­gram’, but the con­tri­bu­tion you will be able to report on your income tax return is $65.
19. Alvaro says:

    May 28, 2008 at 5:41

    Michael, great point, thank you for sharing.
20. Kathy says:

    June 9, 2008 at 6:36

    Mary Lu/Alvaro,

    I saw The Brain Fit­ness Pro­gram on PBS for the first time last night. I have been on the hunt for soft­ware for my ADHD diag­nosed child for sev­eral years. Do you think this pro­gram would be of any benefit?
21. Alvaro says:

    June 9, 2008 at 5:31

    Kathy, the only research-based cog­ni­tive inter­ven­tions I have seen for ADHD kids are:

    1) Cogmed work­ing mem­ory train­ing pro­gram (software-based, avail­able via clinicians)

    2) Cog­ni­tive behav­ioral therapy

    3) Med­i­ta­tion. With less evi­dence at this point, but very intrigu­ing one, as we cov­ered recently.

    None of the pro­grams men­tioned in the PBS pro­gram have pub­lished evi­dence on effi­cacy for kids with ADHD (they tar­get other populations/ cog­ni­tive priorities).

    I sug­gest you con­sult your kids’ doc­tor or spe­cial­ist on what he/ she thinks may help.
22. Martin says:

    June 16, 2008 at 6:21

    As this field begins to bur­geon, it will be crit­i­cal for us to be able to dis­tin­guish between the snake oil and the gen­uine arti­cle. Oth­er­wise peo­ple will be wast­ing time and money and squan­der­ing hope on use­less products.

    Jour­nal­ists can help by not get­ting caught up in the hype.

    I would agree that $300 or so sounds exor­bi­tant. $30 sounds bet­ter. And a pro­gram that begins with proven aca­d­e­mic research is far less likely to be snake oil than one for which paid stud­ies are sup­plied on demand.
23. Ken Cooper says:

    July 30, 2008 at 9:57

    Just received my Brain Fit­ness pack­age. Nice!

    My main com­puter is an iMac but my plan has been to install this on my HP Pre­sario C500 Win­dows (as required) lap­top with Celeron M proces­sor and Vista. The speed of this lap­top is 533 MHz. Now I see that this pro­gram needs a speed of at least 1 GHz.

    I’m hop­ing you’ll tell me to go ahead and load it because it will work fine at your 533 MHZ or that you now have a pro­gram for my iMac.

    I’ll hold off load­ing this until I receive your answer.
24. Alvaro says:

    July 31, 2008 at 1:01

    Ken, we do not sell any prod­uct, but cover the whole mar­ket as a research & advi­sory firm. You prob­a­bly are con­fus­ing companies.

    The doc­u­men­ta­tion you have prob­a­bly lists a web­site and cus­tomer sup­port con­tact infor­ma­tion. I encour­age you to con­tact them and ask that question.

    Regards
25. Ken Cooper says:

    July 31, 2008 at 9:47

    Thanks for the quick response. I called PositScience, the devel­op­ers of the Brain Fit­ness Pro­gram. They have a Mac ver­sion of this and are send­ing it to me. Bravo!

    Thanks again.
26. Dispatch says:

    August 18, 2008 at 9:03

    Hi. I watched por­tions of the Brain Fit­ness Pro­gram on my local PBS sta­tion this past week. The high price for the soft­ware is not a scam, it is a pledge to sup­port PBS, and the soft­ware is a gift. PBS also does shows on musi­cians (last I saw was the Osmonds), and for a pledged amount, you get Osmond stuff.

    I am a Mod­er­a­tor on a mes­sage board that advo­cates treat­ment options for Depres­sion & Epiepsy/Seizure Dis­or­der patients. I am look­ing for a low cost & sci­en­tif­i­cally proven results treat­ment option to share with the mem­bers. Is it pos­si­ble this soft­ware would be ben­e­fi­cial adjunc­tive ther­apy in help­ing ease the fre­quency and sever­ity of depres­sion & seizures? We are not Physi­cians on this mes­sage board, and can not give med­ical advice. We do offer sug­ges­tions the mem­bers can research & dis­cuss with thier treat­ing Physi­cians. I myself suf­fer with seizures & depres­sion result­ing from a trau­matic brain injury. The injury has caused learn­ing dif­fi­cul­ties, short term mem­ory issues, bal­ance & coor­di­na­tion prob­lems, etc. I think this soft­ware would be ben­e­fi­cial for some­one in my case. In most all cases, hav­ing seizures and uncon­trolled depres­sion require some sort of med­ica­tion inter­ven­tion, so in no way am I going to sug­gest any mem­ber go off meds, but to be able to uti­lize some­thing like this soft­ware may open up a whole new world for some peo­ple in gain­ing bet­ter con­trol over seizures & depres­sion. Med­ica­tion for these ill­nesses, as well as ECT treat­ments for depres­sion, cause mem­ory loss and alot of the time awful side effects. Some peo­ple have no relief from these treat­ments. It would be great to be able to have some­thing that is non-invasive & non-toxic to help treat these illnesses.

    I look for­ward to any infor­ma­tion any of you can pro­vide. Thanks in advance for your time.
27. zerodiv says:

    October 6, 2008 at 8:46

    I usu­ally love pbs, but I have to say that I am thor­oughly dis­ap­pointed with this pro­gram. I’m all for fund­ing dri­ves, but this was basi­cally an infomercial.
28. Tracey says:

    February 5, 2009 at 12:48

    Balooch8, Mary Lu and Alvaro, Thanks much for all the won­der­ful infor­ma­tion. You have helped me greatly in my search for brain based activ­i­ties for my 6 year old!
29. maggie says:

    February 7, 2009 at 9:00

    Your blog is won­der­ful, Alvaro!
    I am a grad­u­ate stu­dent in Chicago study­ing the appli­ca­tion of neu­rotech­nolo­gies in teach­ing and learn­ing set­tings. I am espe­cially inter­ested in lis­ten­ing, or sound ther­apy pro­grams and/or brain based com­puter pro­grams for spe­cial needs chil­dren. I have a few questions:

    1-Do you have any rec­om­men­da­tions of grad­u­ate courses/workshops where I can learn more about brain based/brain fit­ness com­puter technology?

    2-What are experts in the field, such as your­self, call­ing this area of neu­rotech­nol­ogy? Is it cog­ni­tive tech­nol­ogy, or neu­roe­d­u­ca­tional tech­nol­ogy? How would I define this area for the gen­eral pop­u­la­tion who doesn’t under­stand these techniques?
30. Alvaro Fernandez says:

    February 10, 2009 at 8:37

    Mag­gie– we also received your email, so will cor­re­spond that way.
31. Karen says:

    March 24, 2009 at 7:59

    RELAX! PBS watch­ers.
    If the CD/DVD is too expen­sive– — Don’t pledge! I saw the show this past Sat., and thought it was extremely inter­est­ing and infor­ma­tive. When I heard the $ re-quested (dona­tion) I thought “well, I can’t afford it — but it was sure an inter­est­ing after­noon. I will remem­ber some of what I heard and leave it at that~