Brooklands Primary School App vs CPAT

This app is Brooklands Primary School’s own parent engagement and communication app and it is designed to enhance communication between the school and parents of our students. Benefits of this app for parents of students at Brooklands Primary School include: • Receive push notifications and in-app messages from the School. • Keep important School information available away from the clutter of email. • View the school calendar and noticeboard, with information relevant to you and your child. • Access important School information via The Hub. • Keep up to date with your children’s activities via the Newsfeed. • Clear and visible Notice Updates for important School events. • Paperless communication. Registration: To use the Brooklands Primary School App, you will need an account which will be provided by your child’s school. Contact: For any further information please email Brooklands Primary School at secretary@brooklands.trafford.sch.uk

CPAT is provided as part of the Teacher Training and Attention in Autism (TTAA) Erasmus+ funded project (https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/psychology/ttaa/index.aspx) and is freely available. The app is designed for use by teachers and practitioners to help develop and promote basic attention skills in autistic children (as well as anyone who can benefit from improving attention skills). Attention is a fundamental cognitive capacity critical for human behaviour and especially related to academic performance and engagement in classroom settings. Therefore, improving attention skills can lead to substantial impact. The app is designed for teachers and practitioners (‘Users’) who are interested in helping students to develop their basic attention skills. The app includes a series of game-like activities that are designed to train different attention skills. The activities progress in difficulty as a function of the student’s individual performance. The app also includes customization tools to help the student engage with the activities. It is important to note that the app is not a Magic solution, and that training attention skills requires effort and commitment. It is strongly recommended that before users start using the CPAT app they take the freely available online course: Attention in autism, available here: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/attention-and-autism). You can also see here for version of this course in different languages: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/psychology/ttaa/outputs.aspx. For previous uses of CPAT in research you can read in the following research publications: • Shalev, L., Tsal Y., & Mevorach C. (2007) Computerized progressive attentional training (CPAT) program: Effective direct intervention for children with ADHD. Child Neuropsychology, 13, 382-388. • Spaniol, M.M., Shalev, L., Kosyvaky, L. & Mevorach, C. (2018). Attention Training in Autism as a Potential Approach to Improving Academic Performance: A School-Based Pilot Study. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders. 48(2), 592–610. • Spaniol, M. M., Mevorach, C., Shalev, L., Teixeira, M.C., Lowenthal, R., de Paula, C.S. (2021). Attention training in children with autism spectrum disorder improves academic performance: A double-blind pilot application of the computerized progressive attentional training program. Autism Research;1–8. https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2566