Intervention Maps · ADHD · Brain-training apps
Do “brain training” apps treat ADHD?
Bottom line
Computerized training can make people better at working-memory tasks they practice. Those gains have not reliably transferred to broad ADHD symptom improvement, school skills, or everyday functioning. Getting better at the game is not the same as treating ADHD.
Why the idea makes sense
ADHD can involve difficulties with working memory, attention, and inhibition. Training those abilities until symptoms improve sounds logical.
The missing step is transfer. A program can improve the skill it repeatedly tests without changing the wider problems that brought someone to treatment.
What the trials found
A major review of 36 randomized trials found clear short-term improvements in verbal and visual-spatial working memory. That part is real.
It did not find reliable overall improvements in total ADHD symptoms, hyperactivity or impulsivity, reading, arithmetic, or most other thinking skills.
A small short-term inattention signal appeared, especially when ratings came from the same setting where training occurred. That is too narrow and context-dependent to establish brain training as stand-alone ADHD care.
Practice gains are not everyday change
Researchers call improvement on trained or closely related tasks “near transfer.” What families need is broader transfer: better functioning away from the program, in classrooms, at work, and at home.
Current programs are better at producing the first kind of change than the second.
Keep it separate from neighboring technologies
Generic cognitive training is not neurofeedback, and neither is the same as a prescription digital therapeutic with a product-specific trial and authorization. “Brain game” is a marketing category, not one evidence category.
Evidence consulted Open sources
Key sources used to prepare this answer. This is not a citation for every sentence.
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