Train Time: A Computerized Educational Program

Train Time is a CD-ROM program designed to capture the learner's attention and then teach various skills, such as auditory comprehension, reading, spelling, speech, problem solving, and attention skills. Train Time was developed by a speech pathologist for children or adults with receptive and expressive language difficulties and have a keen interest in trains.

The primary educational objective of Train Time is to gain attention. There are five different kinds of attention training addressed in this program: focused, sustained, selective, divided and alternating. Focused attention is the ability to acknowledge and respond to a multimodal stimulus. Sustained attention is the ability to maintain attention to auditory, tactile, or visual stimuli during repetitive and continuous activity.

Selective attention requires frontal lobe activation for maintaining a mental "set" in which one must activate and also inhibit responses based on the stimuli. Divided attention is the ability to respond to two or more stimuli simultaneously. This is the "pat your head, rub your stomach, listen, talk and chew gum" type of attention.

Alternating or shifting attention is the ability to move between tasks that have different rules. That is, one must hold the task instructions in mind while manipulating information. Train Time requires frontal lobe activation, activation of working memory, usually multimodal stimulus reception, and expression (i.e., vision, audition, etc.). The sensory association areas are also important in shifting attention because the stimuli in the real world often move quickly from one input mode to another.

The games used in Train Time were designed for individuals of all ages who have deficits in language and literacy. Children as young as three years have played some of the games, as well as teens and adults.

The games involve real pictures (full-color) and real speech (16-bit sound). There are eight different games in Train Time, and each game has levels of difficulty from easy to hard. These levels range from, "watch the screen" to "listen, watch, problem solve and respond."

The initial Train Time tasks focus on attention because attention can be considered the foundation of sensory information processing, conceptualization, and cognition. Literacy and comprehension are high order attention skills that need the association areas of visual, motor, sensory, language, and audition. These games are intended to teach children how to learn. This process begins with learning to coordinate the various areas in the brain. Learning and generalization of learning occurs when each area becomes coordinated with one another.

Other popular computer programs, such as Fast ForWord and Earobics, are focused primarily on auditory processing. Train Time contains games for auditory processing of speech and non-speech sounds as well as games for expressive language. The programs are complementary, but they do not substitute for one another.

Train Time is user friendly. The screen designs are large, clear, simple and usually self-explanatory. The manual describes one way to work with children using this software as a tool. The games work on a touch screen, mouse, or keyboard. Most three-year-olds can navigate their way around the games.

Train Time does not require any training seminar nor professional credentials. Train Time is produced and distributed by LocuTour. Other related software programs available through LocuTour are: Attention and Memory Vol. I and Articulation. For more information about these programs or to obtain a demonstration CD-ROM with all of these software programs, contact LocuTour at P.O. Box 15006, San Luis Obispo, CA 93406; telephone: (800) 777-3166; fax: (805) 543-6665; and email: locutour@aol.com.

This article appeared in a previous issue of The Sound Connection, 1997, Vol. 5, No. 2, pages 4 & 5. The Sound Connection is the quarterly newsletter of the Society for Auditory Intervention Techniques (SAIT).