For ADHD in Children and Teens:
A brain map shows what’s going on in your child’s brain.
Most ADHD assessments look at behavior, attention and how a child is doing at school. That’s useful, and it’s most of what a diagnosis is based on.
A brain map measures something different. It shows brain patterns that may help explain why your child is struggling.
You have to know what’s actually happening before you can target it. Then we build a plan: which areas to train, which tools to use, and where to start.
Low Arousal & Reduced Mental Activation
Her brain is operating in a state of reduced internal activation, making it harder to maintain focus, motivation, and stay “locked in” during schoolwork. This can also make it easier to become bored.
Arousal values across Eyes Opened, Eyes Closed, and VCPT conditions.
Map Finding
Reduced arousal values were present with Eyes Opened, Eyes Closed, and during the VCPT test, indicating cortical activation and engagement below the optimal zone shown in green.
ADHD Symptoms Vary by Age
In younger children: hyper, can’t sit still, easily distracted, interrupts, poor follow-through, meltdowns, impulsive.
In teenagers: trouble managing time and planning, disorganized, smart but not doing the work, more conflict at home and school.
ADHD often changes as a child grows, from a young child bouncing off the walls, to a teenager who seems unmotivated.
Adults often show up with different problems, and sometimes the same ones as teenagers. Parents often tell us, while we’re talking about their child, “I think this is me.”
Why a Brain Map
1.
To see what’s actually driving the problem
ADHD isn’t one thing. The same symptoms can come from very different combinations of brain patterns. A map can show whether a child’s brain:
- Runs low on energy, so attention switches off, or the body keeps moving to stay alert
- Gets overloaded by sensory input
- Has trouble processing what they hear (the child who “doesn’t listen”)
- Can’t settle down
- Can’t get into gear
- Zones out, or gets stuck in their own head
- Reacts too strongly, emotionally
- Treats everything as important, then shuts down
2.
To build a plan around what we find
One approach doesn’t fit everyone. The combination is what has to be targeted.
The map shows the patterns. What we do about them might be neurofeedback or another form of neuroregulation. Or it might be a referral: a neurologist, an OT, a nutrition or sleep question, or a conversation with your child’s doctor about medication.
The map points to the options. Our clinical experience helps us suggest which ones can be useful, and in what order. You decide which make sense for your family. You may not choose to do all of them.
The map also helps you understand your child. Is your child not listening because of attention, or because they aren’t processing information efficiently? Once you know which, “he doesn’t listen” becomes something you can work with.
My Child Already Has an ADHD Diagnosis. Why Would We Do a Map?
A diagnosis tells you which difficulties are present. Even a full battery of testing tells you where a child struggles, not what the brain is doing. That’s what we need in order to build a plan.
Does Every Child With ADHD Need a Brain Map?
Most of the time, yes. As we described above, ADHD isn’t one thing. Many different brain patterns can drive the problem.
We have several ways to help train your child’s brain. Which one to start with depends on the patterns in your child’s brain. Without a map, we’re guessing at where to start.
What the Map Measures
We record the brain at rest and while it’s working. Then we compare the results two ways.
Then, we compare your child’s brain to other children the same age. This is called a normative database. We look for areas that are significantly different: too much activity or too little, or too much slow or fast activity compared with other kids that age.
Next, we compare your child’s brain to children who clearly have ADHD. This is called the ADHD Index. It uses 1,200 well-documented ADHD cases, confirmed by experts and grouped by age. It’s a detailed statistical comparison: how closely does your child’s brain match theirs?
The result comes back as a percentage. Over 53% points to a probability of attention problems.
That is not a diagnosis, and the people who built the index say so directly. It’s a correlation, but a specific and objective one, measured against documented cases. It points to what may be contributing. A second way of looking at the question, using brain patterns rather than behavior.
The two recordings together tell us things about a child’s brain that don’t show up any other way. Educational and psychological testing really helps identify where a child struggles. What it can’t show is the brain, and that’s another dimension in deciding how to help.
Psychologists who work with both sets of tools have often told us the same thing: you need to be able to look at the brain.
Training the Brain to Regulate Itself
ADHD is fundamentally a problem with regulation. The brain isn’t reliably doing its part. That could be holding attention, controlling an impulse, or just settling down.
Often a child has very little ability to manage it on their own.
That’s what neurofeedback trains. We give the brain information about its own activity so it can practice doing something different.
How long it takes varies a lot. It’s like the gym. Things can take some time to kick into gear, and a lot of it comes down to how long someone sticks with it.
It doesn’t mean ADHD goes away. It means your child is far better able to manage it, which changes how the whole family navigates school and daily life.
What Parents Often Tell Us After Training
Their child is managing attention better and doing better in school. Getting through homework with fewer reminders. Sleeping better. Less anger. Calmer. Able to sit through a class. Or dinner.
Every child is different, and we don’t know in advance what any one family will see.
Other Things That Affect ADHD
Nutrition, sleep, and what’s going on at home all play a role. So do other factors you wouldn’t know to look for. We’ll point out which ones are worth paying attention to. Sometimes a family can make small changes that make a difference.
With thirty years of complex cases and what the map shows, we can often suggest options you may not have considered.
Training In Our Office, or at Home With Our Support
We’re in Jupiter, Florida. Families drive to us from Miami, Coral Gables and Orlando. Others have come from Georgia, Ohio, Ontario, California and the Bahamas.
Families who live farther away can make the drive once, for the brain map. That visit is what lets us see what’s happening in your child’s brain and build a plan around it.
Most local families do all their training here. Others train at home, when the drive is too far or when getting to our office once or twice a week isn’t realistic.
Education and Home Training Manager
For those who need to train at home, we provide the equipment, rented or purchased. Pricila Vizcaíno dials in and runs the sessions remotely, the same way our staff would in the office.
She’s the Center’s Education and Home Training Manager. She’s been doing this for 15 years and supports all of our home families. As parents learn the routine, she teaches them to run some of the sessions themselves, which brings the cost down. It stays under her supervision throughout, guided by the map and by how your child responds.
Home training isn’t right for every situation. We have more equipment here than any family could have at home, and some children need it. The map tells us which case we’re looking at, and it guides which options are likely to help most.
An ADHD Case from Neurofeedback 101
Neither the Mom nor her Son Thought It Was Working
From Neurofeedback 101: Rewiring the Brain for ADHD, Anxiety, Depression and Beyond, by Michael Cohen
A woman brought her 15-year-old son to train for ADD. His grades had steadily dropped over the school year, and he was making C’s, D’s and F’s. He disliked coming to our office and said it was a waste of his time. He also said he didn’t have a problem.
When he arrived for his eighth weekly session, I asked his mother if she had seen any improvement. She said she didn’t think neurofeedback was helping at all. When I inquired about his grades, she responded, “Oh, he’s been making A’s and B’s in the last four to five weeks.” After pointing out this shift, she realized it had occurred since he had been training.
When I asked the boy if he realized that his grades had improved significantly in recent weeks, he responded yes, but that neurofeedback had nothing to do with it. He said, “I just decided I wanted to make better grades.”
This lack of awareness of slow subtle changes from training is common.
Every child responds differently. A lot depends on what you’re starting with.
Why Center for Brain Training
We’ve worked with neurofeedback and brain mapping for 30 years, including a great many children, teens and adults with ADHD.
Michael Cohen is a QEEG-Diplomate, a brain mapping credential. He’s taught thousands of health professionals about neurofeedback. He wrote Neurofeedback 101, an introduction to the field that’s highly rated on Amazon, and The Mind Rewired.
Our clinical team works from the same approach. That includes Jessi Trifiletti, our Center Director, Darcee McAninley, our brain mapping specialist, and the rest of our team.
Michael Cohen, QEEG-D
Founder & Clinical Consultant
About Medication
Neurofeedback doesn’t have to be an either/or choice.
Some families come to us while their child is on medication. Some are looking for something to try alongside it.
Medication decisions are between you and your child’s prescriber. We don’t tell you to stop and we don’t tell you to keep going.
What the map shows is often relevant to medication, particularly with ADHD. We’ll explain what it means, so you have something specific to bring to your doctor.
What Happens First
A 40-minute consultation. You tell us about your child in detail. We talk about whether a map is the right step and what we’d expect it to tell us. We talk about what’s realistic, and whether we’re the right place for your child at all.
Sometimes we don’t recommend a map. Occasionally something in the history has been missed that nobody thought to ask about, and we point a family elsewhere first. That isn’t typical, but it happens. There are also things worth ruling out before or alongside anything we’d do.
We’re trying to give you your best set of options. The map is usually the strongest one we have.
Get in touch
Shedule a consultation to see what a brain map could show for your child, and what your options are.
For more information or to book your confidential consultation, call or text us at 561-744-7616 or click here and fill out our contact form.
