ACTIVATE

Software for ADHD & Executive Function Skills

ACTIVATE software is both a cognitive assessment tool and a brain training program for children with ADHD and other Executive Function difficulties.

We know the brain is shaped with activity. ACTIVATE works on each of the 8 cognitive skills needed for working executive function, attention, self regulation and working memory.

How It Works – The Software

Students participate in a series of game-like exercises designed to improve 8 core cognitive functions.

1. Sustained Attention
2. Working Memory
3. Speed of Information Processing
4. Response Inhibition
5. Cognitive Flexibility
6. Category Formation
7. Pattern Formation
8. Multiple Simultaneous Attention

The program is responsive to each student, adapting every 10-15 seconds to continually challenge without causing frustration.

Advanced diagnostics recognize 40 types of child errors allowing the program to quickly generate corrective strategies to help the student understand why an answer was incorrect. Students will move quickly through areas of strength – gaining confidence, opening up more time to focus on areas of need.

How It Works – Our Service

Gemm Learning provides Activate with professional oversight and direction in conjunction with our suite of programs. Students participate in Activate 3-4 times per week, for 15-20 minutes per day.

The program utilizes three NIH cognitive assessments at the beginning and the end of the program, the Working Memory Test, The Flanker Test, and the Go/No Go Test to assess needs and measure growth.

• The Working Memory Test assesses working memory, memory that is concerned with immediate conscious perceptual and linguistic processing
• The Flanker Test assesses the ability to suppress responses that are not appropriate in a given situation, measuring information processing and selective attention.
• The Go/No Go Test assesses speed of information processing, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility.

About ACTIVATE Software and Dr. Bruce E Wexler, MD

Bruce E. Wexler, M.D., founder of C8 Sciences, is professor emeritus of psychiatry and senior research scientist at Yale School of Medicine and director of the Neurocognitive Research Laboratory at the Connecticut Mental Health Center.

The ACTIVATE software program is based on more than 20 years of Dr. Wexler’s research. To view a list Dr. Wexler’s peer reviewed research click here click here.

In 2011 the NIH named Dr. Wexler as recipient of the NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award. The award was created specifically to support exceptionally innovative and/or unconventional research projects that have the potential to create or overturn fundamental paradigms.

Case Studies

The ACTIVATE software program is currently used in 26 countries around the world and is used in numerous school districts in the United States.

Maplebrook School in Amenia, NY, reported significant growth in executive function skills for all students. Read more.

New Haven Reads, New Haven, CT, saw incredible growth in their student population in just 6 weeks. Read more.

Bristol Schools, Bristol, CT, an early adopter of the program, experienced remarkable gains in working memory. Read more.

When Gemm Learning Recommends ACTIVATE Software

Gemm Learning’s primary intervention is Fast ForWord, which is most impactful when there are at least hints of language processing difficulties at some point in a child’s life.  In those cases, where a student starts with Fast ForWord, we may recommend ACTIVATE as a follow-on program to tackle some of the self-regulation and executive function skills not targeted by Fast ForWord.

Where there is no evidence of an auditory processing delays and/or if reading skills are not the primary concern, depending on your goals, we may recommend ACTIVATE software first.