Our Top 5 Most Frequently Asked Questions About Brain Training

Determining if brain training is right for you or a loved one is a big decision — there are many factors involved in improving learning and comprehension skills. Over 35 years of research and development at LearningRx, we have gained significant insight into brain training, enabling us to create programs that target specific problems and bring about remarkable improvements in our clients’ lives.

Throughout our many years in business, we have received a lot of questions about brain training: here are the top 5.

1. How Is Brain Training Different From Tutoring?

One of the first questions people ask about brain training is how it differs from tutoring. While both are effective, brain training and tutoring offer different solutions to different problems.

Learning can be broken down into two components:

• Strong educational content, and
• The cognitive ability to learn and apply that content.

Tutoring is a resource for delivering — or in some cases, redelivering — material for additional understanding. Brain training, on the other hand, helps improve weak cognitive skills to enhance learning abilities.

If your child is behind in school because of the flu, a substitute teacher, a move across the country, etc., tutoring can help them get caught up. In other words, if you can identify outside circumstances that have interfered with the delivery of information to your child, hiring someone to redeliver that information makes a lot of sense.

If, on the other hand, your child isn’t grasping information because one or more of their cognitive skills are weak, redelivering the material over and over won’t work. To see improvement, you need to uncover the root cause of the problem and successfully strengthen the affected cognitive skill(s). That’s what brain training does.

2. What Are Cognitive Skills?

Also known as “brain skills,” cognitive skills are the core skills your brain uses to think, read, learn, remember, reason, pay attention, and perform. They include:

• Visual and auditory processing
• Logic and reasoning
• Memory
• Processing speed
• Attention

Working together, cognitive skills take incoming information and move it into the bank of knowledge you use every day at school, at work, and in life.

Each of your cognitive skills plays an important role in processing new information. That means if even one of these skills is weak, the ability to grasp, retain, or use that new information is impacted. In fact, most learning struggles are caused by one or more weak cognitive skills.

3. How Is Brain Training With LearningRx Different From Online Brain Training Games?

When a client takes part in brain training at LearningRx, they are paired with a brain trainer for an individualized program that consists of game-like mental exercises that are both fun and challenging.

The difference between these exercises and online brain training games lies in our unique personal trainer approach. The one-on-one nature of the training relationship allows LearningRx brain trainers to do three critical things:

• Focus on results. We help our clients reach their goals by customizing each training session and encouraging them to work past their comfort levels.
• Focus on attitude. We challenge our clients to recognize and pursue their potential, learning to see failure not as something to be avoided, but as a stepping stone to greater success.
• Focus on confidence. We encourage struggling children and adults to engage, embrace challenges, recognize improvements, and celebrate gains.

4. What Is the Difference Between ADD and ADHD?

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is the official name of a neurological condition, the symptoms of which include various combinations of poor attention, poor impulse control, and hyperactivity.

There are three types of ADHD:

• Inattentive ADHD (also referred to as ADD), which involves inattentive symptoms only.
• Hyperactive-Impulsive ADHD, which involves hyperactive/impulsive symptoms only.
• Combined ADHD, which involves both inattentive and hyperactive/impulsive symptoms

Generally speaking, what are stereotypically thought of as ADD/ADHD symptoms (hyperactivity and impulsivity, a child who can’t sit still, etc.) can signify either of the latter two subtypes, while ADD (or Inattentive ADHD) symptoms revolve around problems with attention.

Learn more about the difference between ADD and ADHD in our recent blog article on the topic.

5. Who Can Benefit From Brain Training?

There’s a common misconception that brain training is only for children — but that couldn’t be further from the truth.

Because cognitive weaknesses are not necessarily strengthened by time, children who struggle with reading, learning, reasoning, remembering, or paying attention often have the same struggles well into adulthood. Many of our clients are, in fact, adults of all ages and stages of life, from college students to career builders to senior citizens.

Truly, almost anyone can benefit from brain training. At LearningRx, we’ve worked with people of all ages who struggle with a wide variety of learning difficulties, from ADHD, dyslexia, and autism to TBI, memory decline, and math struggles. All in all, our programs have helped more than 100,000 individuals and families sharpen their brain skills!

Ready to Explore Brain Training For Yourself or Your Child?

There are two steps to getting started with Brain Training at LearningRx:

• First, take our free brain quiz. This quiz only takes about three minutes and allows you to see how your brain skills perform compared to those of your peers. Once you’re finished, you’ll have a general idea of where your challenges lie and what skills may need to be strengthened.
• Next, schedule a Brain Skills Assessment with our brain trainers. This assessment takes about an hour and is reasonably priced for the insight it provides. The assessment will pinpoint specific cognitive weaknesses and offer a detailed understanding of the why behind the struggles you or your loved one have been experiencing. This will give our team (and you) a good idea of the appropriate next steps to take.

Do you have additional questions about brain training? LearningRx is ready to help you or your loved one — contact us today to start seeing improvement at school, at work, and throughout your life.