What They Studied
Researchers investigated whether 3 months of Brain Balance program participation could improve cognitive performance in children and adolescents with developmental and attentional challenges. The study was authored by Dr. Rebecca Jackson of Brain Balance and Dr. Conor J. Wild of Cambridge Brain Sciences (now Creyos Health), using the Cambridge Brain Sciences web-based cognitive testing platform — one of the most widely used computerized cognitive assessment tools in published research.
A total of 478 participants (aged 4–18) completed three one-hour Brain Balance sessions per week over a period of three months. They were separated into two age groups for analysis: children aged 4–6 completed a battery of three cognitive tasks, while those aged 7–18 completed a battery of 12 tasks. The cognitive tests were administered before and after the program period.
The study compared these participants to a control group consisting of children who had enrolled in Brain Balance but completed an average of only 27 days of the program. Both groups had the same baseline demographic and observable characteristics — the key difference was the amount of program exposure.
An important design feature: the Brain Balance program involves sensory-motor exercises, coordination training, and academic activities, but it does not include any practice on the Cambridge Brain Sciences cognitive tasks themselves. This means any improvements observed on the cognitive tests represent transfer effects — genuine changes in underlying cognitive ability, not simply improvement from repeated test exposure.
What They Found
Significant Improvement Across All Cognitive Tasks
Participants aged 7 and older who completed 3 months of the Brain Balance program showed significant overall improvement across all 12 cognitive tests compared to the control group (F = 15.87, p < .001). The Brain Balance group improved on every cognitive test measured, while the control group (27-day average exposure) improved on only a small number of tasks.
The greatest improvements were observed in tasks measuring memory, reasoning, verbal ability, and concentration — cognitive domains that are directly relevant to academic performance and daily functioning in children with developmental and attentional challenges.
The 12 Cognitive Domains Measured
| Cognitive Task | Domain Measured | BB Group |
|---|---|---|
| Paired Associates | Episodic memory | Improved ✓ |
| Monkey Ladder | Visuospatial working memory | Improved ✓ |
| Spatial Span | Short-term memory | Improved ✓ |
| Grammatical Reasoning | Verbal reasoning | Improved ✓ |
| Rotations | Mental rotation | Improved ✓ |
| Double Trouble | Cognitive processing (Stroop task) | Improved ✓ |
| Feature Match | Attention and concentration | Improved ✓ |
| Odd One Out | Deductive reasoning | Improved ✓ |
| Spatial Planning | Planning and executive function | Improved ✓ |
| Polygons | Visuospatial processing | Improved ✓ |
| Token Search | Working memory and strategy | Improved ✓ |
| Digit Span | Verbal working memory | Improved ✓ |
Younger Children Also Showed Improvement
Participants aged 4–6 completed a shorter battery of three cognitive tasks. This group also showed improvement, though the smaller number of tasks limits the granularity of the analysis. Some improvements were also observed in the control group among younger children, specifically on tasks measuring attention and concentration — suggesting that certain cognitive domains may respond to even brief program exposure.
Even Brief Exposure Produced Some Effects
The control group (averaging 27 days of program participation) showed some significant improvement on specific tasks: attention and concentration in younger children, and planning and executive function in the 7+ age group. While the 3-month group outperformed the control group across the board, this finding suggests that the Brain Balance program may begin producing measurable cognitive changes relatively early — and that the full 3-month program amplifies and broadens those effects.
Why It Matters
Transfer Effects: The Critical Distinction
The most important methodological feature of this study is that participants never practiced the cognitive tasks they were measured on. The Brain Balance program consists of sensory-motor exercises, coordination training, and academic activities — not computerized cognitive drills. This means the improvements observed on the Cambridge Brain Sciences tests represent transfer effects: genuine gains in underlying cognitive capacity that generalize to tasks the children never practiced.
This distinction matters because one of the common criticisms of cognitive training programs is that they improve performance on trained tasks but fail to transfer to untrained tasks or real-world functioning. This study's design directly addresses that concern.
The collaboration with Cambridge Brain Sciences (now Creyos Health) is significant because CBS is an independent cognitive testing platform used in hundreds of published research studies. The cognitive tests were not developed by Brain Balance — they are standardized, peer-reviewed instruments with established psychometric properties and normative data from large populations. This makes the study's outcome measures externally validated and independently credible.
The cognitive domains measured in this study — working memory, reasoning, attention, verbal ability, processing speed — map directly to the executive function deficits commonly associated with ADHD and developmental disorders. Improvement across all 12 tasks suggests that the program's multimodal approach produces broad cognitive benefits rather than narrow, task-specific gains.
These findings are consistent with emerging research suggesting that physical exercise and multimodal training may be among the most reliable nonpharmacological approaches for improving cognitive functions diminished in children with ADHD. A meta-analysis cited in a subsequent Brain Balance study found that physical exercise was the most reliable intervention, compared to several other nonpharmacological approaches, for improving ADHD-related cognitive deficits — and that nonpharmacological interventions were equally effective in unmedicated and medicated participants.
Study Limitations
The control group consisted of participants who had enrolled in Brain Balance but completed an average of only 27 days, rather than a matched non-treatment group. This means both groups received some program exposure, making it difficult to fully distinguish program effects from natural maturation, practice effects on the cognitive tests, or placebo effects. The study did not include a true no-treatment control group. Participants were not randomized to conditions — the control group's shorter duration was based on enrollment timing rather than random assignment. Specific clinical diagnoses of participants were not available. A follow-up assessment to determine whether cognitive gains were sustained was not conducted. Future studies with randomized assignment, a true no-treatment control, and longitudinal follow-up are needed.