Brain-training food and advice

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pheasantchick
Posts: 2439
Joined: Tue Jun 02, 2009 10:28 pm

Brain-training food and advice

Post by pheasantchick »

I was chatting to a year 6 (or year 7 from September onwards) Mum about her 11+ experiences. She commentated that in the couple of weeks leading up to the exam, her child had omega 3/vitamin supplements, plenty of fish, early nights etc.

Just wondered whether anyone had anyother tips like this (and do they work?).
mike1880
Posts: 2563
Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2008 10:51 pm

Re: Brain-training food and advice

Post by mike1880 »

I can't see that leaving anything until 2 weeks before the exam is going to do any good whatsoever. Ours had fish oil supplements for about a year or 18 months before the exam, sadly he doesn't have a twin we could carry out a proper blind trial on so I don't know whether it made any difference. Basically, anything that makes you feel better/calmer/more confident/less panic stricken is a good thing.

Mike
hermanmunster
Posts: 12816
Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2006 9:51 am
Location: The Seaside

Re: Brain-training food and advice

Post by hermanmunster »

At DDs prep - many of the kids were knocking back the omega 3 supplements - not sure if it made any difference other than to the takings of the health food shops etc.

AFAIR the only studies I have seen on them were done amongst children with specific learning problems, you can't extrapolate to children of above average intelligence .

absolutely mammoth document..
http://www.ahrq.gov/downloads/pub/evide ... mental.pdf
rosered100

Re: Brain-training food and advice

Post by rosered100 »

Well I took fish oil from about the 4th month of pregnancy with DS1 as that is when the brain is meant to be developing. He then took it until about aged 4 & I can tell you that his head size (& possibly brain size?? :lol: :lol: ) is almost double that of DS2 who didnt have any supplements.

Not sure about any difference in intelligence though but there is a huge difference in ability to focus but that could be down to individuals as their brains are definitely wired up totally opposite to each other.
jingle
Posts: 290
Joined: Mon Oct 05, 2009 2:35 pm
Location: kent

Re: Brain-training food and advice

Post by jingle »

My sons tutor also recommended omega 3 because he has quite a short attention span and gets VERY easily distracted, tending to start doodling pictures etc and not really listening. He has verbal dyspraxia and tends to 'go off on a tangent' at times. He took the supplements for about three months and although quite sceptical at first, I did notice a difference and both teacher and tutor commented on the improvement.
I don't know how much of the improvement was down to the omega or how much to attribute to him realising he needed to 'pull his finger out'!
A friend who is also a tutor is convinced that it helps children with concentration difficulties. She also has a thing about E numbers. I really am not sure what I think but it certainly did him no harm. Happily he managed to pull it off on the day and passed! :D
mike1880
Posts: 2563
Joined: Sat Sep 27, 2008 10:51 pm

Re: Brain-training food and advice

Post by mike1880 »

Attention span and distraction was why we gave ours fish oil (not that he gets distracted when reading a good book or focussed on his latest drawing, of course). I have to say that we didn't notice any difference, his teachers didn't make any comments and we didn't notice any difference when we stopped. But we felt we were doing something about it :D .

One person we were involved with for a specific issue had all sort of ideas about supplements and food additives and other stuff which we have totally ignored (ours probably hardly ever see an E-number anyway). He did fine on the day, but if we'd got hung up on red Smarties and tartrazine and whatnot I'm sure he'd have picked up on it and got stressed and then who knows?

Mike
hermanmunster
Posts: 12816
Joined: Fri Sep 15, 2006 9:51 am
Location: The Seaside

Re: Brain-training food and advice

Post by hermanmunster »

mine got thoroughly dosed up on red smarties (and blue ones) and plenty of tartrazine.

I find it is parents who get more hyper than the kids when these are around..... I remember a carol service where the girls had biccies afterwards - mothers were trying to stop them in case they had a "sugar rush" ... so, it was xmas!
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