MindPower Builder: School Edition FAQ

First, the Captain’s Log MindPower Builder-School Edition is the most comprehensive set of challenging brain training programs ever published. While other programs focus on particular issues, such as working memory or auditory processing, the MindPower Builder-School Edition provides you with a comprehensive training library containing over 2000 exercises targeting twenty different cognitive skills. The wide variety of challenging tasks and the depth of the content can potentially help students at almost any ability level build their brainpower.

Second, the MindPower Builder provides a built-in reward system to keep kids motivated. Entertaining, video-game-like tasks break the routine of the exercises, rewarding success and adding additional training in hand-eye coordination.

Third, in addition to executive functioning tasks, you can target behavioral tracks, such as patience, focus, listening, response control, and processing speed. You can use the programs to focus on helping your students to learn to think before they act, shut out distractions and focus on the task at hand, follow instructions better, and work more quickly. Research has shown that the MindPower Builder can generalize to improved behavior and higher achievement academically.

Fourth, if you wish, you can incorporate an optional, simple, dry-sensor neurofeedback protocol into your cognitive training plan to help your students develop a relaxed, calm, positive mental state while they perform the exercises.

Fifth, the Captain’s Log MindPower Builder is extraordinarily easy to use. Just select your student’s appropriate grade level (K – 12th grade) and the program’s difficulty level (from Very Easy to Challenging). The MindPower Builder will take it from there, self-adjusting the training difficulty based on your student’s performance.

Sixth, the MindPower Builder-School Edition was specifically designed for use by educators in the school setting, and is installed directly on the trainer’s computer (not web-based). It provides detailed documentation of progress, which can be set up in the program settings to be automatically emailed to parents or others.

Seventh, the MindPower Builder-School Edition is interactive and keeps your students continually challenged. It gives you the ideal tools to function as an effective brain coach, keeping the student encouraged when the going gets tough and offering enthusiastic recognition and rewards for hard work and success. Click here for more information about being an effective brain coach.

Eighth, each license of the Captain’s Log MindPower Builder-School Edition comes with a remote cloud training system that allows you the option of offering off-site training (homework). The Cloud system keeps the student’s home training and school training in sync, and allows you to coach players and change their training plans remotely, if you wish. The Cloud system also allows you to use a student’s software license on any computer in your school.

The amount of training necessary for cognitive skills to potentially reach a higher level of functioning and demonstrate lasting benefit varies for different individuals; we recommend a minimum of two hours of cognitive training per week (e.g., one half hour per day, four days per week). Based on this recommendation, depending on the individual’s degree of impairment and overall training goals, a comprehensive plan would typically include a minimum of 20 to 40 hours of cognitive training. This training would be supervised and/or reviewed by the “brain coach.” The individual can work both in the professional’s office and at home and, thus, the training would be expected to last about three to six months.

Research supports the benefits of cognitive training and its generalization to meaningful improvements in real-life functioning. As an example, Rabiner et al. (2010) carried out a randomized trial to examine the effectiveness of two computer-based interventions for students with attention difficulties – Captain’s Log® and Destination Reading. Students in the Captain’s Log group scored significantly higher than the controls and the Destination Reading group on reading outcome measures. See page 12 of this analysis by John Hopkin’s researchers HERE.

In a study of college students studying accounting, Lampit et al. (2014) found that the Captain’s Log MindPower Builder: School Edition resulted in faster and more accurate mental processing of an unrelated academic skill that was not trained by the MindPower Builder: School Edition – bookkeeping and accounting math. In this study, non-impaired college students were intensely trained (40 sessions) using either the Captain’s Log system or a math software program. In comparison to the group who trained using commercial educational math software, the students in the Captain’s Log group performed significantly better in respect to their accuracy and mental processing speed when assessed using an hour-long bookkeeping test. This is the first study that demonstrates the generalization or “far transfer” of cognitive training to relevant real-world job performance. Access the full study HERE.

Additional research may be found HERE.

Cognitive training can be used as a technology tool to help achieve targeted goals, such as enhancing self-esteem, training frustration tolerance, and developing problem solving strategies. Some research has shown that improving memory, attention, perception, reasoning, planning, judgment, general learning, and overall executive functioning, can lead, in turn, to improvements in self-awareness, self-confidence, and emotional stability.

Various meta-cognitive coaching strategies that focus on developing coping skills or positive thinking can be applied interactively during cognitive training. The benefit is that the individual through trial and error can learn to apply these new strategies and approaches in order to problem solve how to enhance their cognitive performance. For example, a trainer might help a student to develop the habit of writing down and prioritizing daily tasks or to improve the skills needed to organize and categorize household items or grocery lists by learning how to pause and quickly take notes during an exercise.

There are a number of reasons why the computer is an ideal training partner for exercising the mind. The computer makes it easy to track progress. It not only provides a wide variety of different types of exercises, both visual and auditory, but also automatically becomes more challenging as the trainee progresses. Individuals will be continually directed to develop their cognitive skills to the maximum of their capabilities. The computer is also non-judgmental and never loses patience! And, perhaps best of all, students associate computer “games” with fun.

The MindPower Builder: School Edition offers a Cloud system option, which allows the student to work both in the school setting and at home. The student’s training plan settings and data are securely stored on a remote server that is simultaneously accessible via the Web at both school and home. The program ensures that both computers stay in sync. The individual’s training results are always available to the teacher and the training plan can be changed at any time. All data is stored in the Cloud is anonymous, accessed via a secured connection and encrypted.

The Captain’s Log MindPower Builder: School Edition provides teachers with the ability to select a comprehensive training plan based on grade level. They can select the student’s current grade level (K -12th grade) and a comprehensive training plan will be automatically created. The difficulty level from Very Easy to Challenging can also be set. Training is automatically adjusted based on the student’s progress. As they master a cognitive skill, the training exercises become more challenging and when they need help in learning a specific cognitive skill the training paradigm becomes easier.

The MindPower Builder: School Edition targets the following 20 cognitive skills:

• Alternating Attention
• Auditory Processing Speed
• Central Processing Speed
• Conceptual Reasoning
• Divided Attention
• Focused Attention
• Fine Motor Control
• Fine Motor Speed
• General Attention
• Immediate Memory
• Response Inhibition
• Selective Attention
• Sustained Attention
• Visual Perception
• Visual Processing Speed
• Visual Scanning
• Visuospatial Classification
• Visuospatial Sequencing
• Visual Tracking
• Working Memory

A bibliography of Cognitive Training Research may be found HERE.

The BrainTrain cloud system is highly secure. The system contains only encrypted, de-identified data using random identifications, and the connection to the cloud system uses HTTPS with a complex password. Even if access to the database were obtained and decrypted, the cloud system contains no identifying names or PHI; all PHI related to BrainTrain’s cognitive training products is stored locally only on the user’s computer, and is inaccessible to outsiders and to BrainTrain.