Cogmed Working Memory Training
Most attention treatment manages symptoms. Cogmed trains the capacity those symptoms run through — working memory — across five structured weeks, with a clinician coaching it rather than an app tracking it.
Working memory is the ability to hold information in mind while you use it: following a three-step instruction, keeping the pieces of a problem in your head, tracking a conversation while working out your reply. When it is weak, the result reads as not listening or not trying. It is neither. It is capacity.
Cogmed is a five-week adaptive training programme delivered under weekly clinician coaching. Grand Oaks is one of the few practices in the North Shore and Lake County area that offers it, and the coaching is the part that separates it from the brain-training apps it superficially resembles.
We see clients at our Northbrook office on Academy Drive and our Libertyville office on Hollister Drive, and by telehealth anywhere in Illinois.
When working memory is worth targeting
- Multi-step instructions that go in complete and come back half done
- Understanding the material in class, then going blank in the test
- Losing the thread mid-task, mid-email or mid-sentence
- Homework that takes three times as long as the amount of work in it would explain
- An evaluation that has already named working memory as a specific weak point
- Attention difficulty following a medical event, where the question is rehabilitation rather than ADHD
How the programme runs
Assessment comes first. We confirm working memory is genuinely the right target before anyone begins — through a screening, or through a full evaluation where the broader diagnostic question is still open. Training the wrong target costs five weeks and answers nothing.
Then five weeks of training: usually five sessions a week at 30 to 45 minutes, done from home around school or work. The exercises adapt in real time, sitting at the edge of current capacity rather than at a fixed difficulty.
A Grand Oaks clinician reviews the progress data every week, adjusts the plan, and keeps motivation from collapsing in week three, which it does for very nearly everyone. The programme closes with a review of what changed and a plan for turning it into something usable at a desk or a kitchen table.
We are straight about the limits, because five weeks is a real commitment. The evidence that Cogmed improves performance on the working memory tasks it trains is good. The evidence for how far those gains carry into schoolwork and daily life is mixed, and we will tell you that before you start rather than after. It does not replace comprehensive ADHD treatment, and it is not the right answer for every attention difficulty.
Clinicians who work in this area
Matched from each clinician's own stated specialisms. Our Intake Team will pair you with the right person for your situation rather than the next available slot.
- Marina Shakhman, Psy.D.Licensed Clinical Psychologist · Clinical Director
- Marisa Kunz, Psy.D.Licensed Clinical Psychologist
- Benjamin Michaels, Psy.D.Licensed Clinical Psychologist
- Kelsey Salsman, MA, LPCLicensed Professional Counselor
- Gabby Clow, LPCLicensed Professional Counselor
- Claire Manley, LCPCLicensed Clinical Professional Counselor
Insurance, including Medicare
Grand Oaks Behavioral Health is in-network with most major plans — Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois, Aetna, Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Evernorth (Cigna), UnitedHealthcare, BCBS Community Medicaid, Oscar — and with Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans, which a good number of behavioral health practices in the area do not accept. We also take BCBS Community Medicaid. Our Intake Team verifies your specific benefits and tells you your cost before your first appointment.
Where we see clients
604 Academy Drive, Northbrook, IL 60062 and 1800 Hollister Drive, Suite 201, Libertyville, IL 60048, plus telehealth anywhere in Illinois. We regularly see clients from Northbrook, Glenview, Deerfield, Highland Park, Northfield, Wilmette and across Lake County and the North Shore.
Common questions
Children, teenagers and adults whose assessment shows working memory as a meaningful weak point — most often alongside ADHD, sometimes with a learning difference, occasionally after a medical event affecting attention. It is not a general ADHD treatment and it is not a substitute for an evaluation. If working memory is not what is driving the difficulty, we will say so and point you at what is.
Five weeks, typically five sessions a week at 30 to 45 minutes each, plus a weekly coaching call with your Grand Oaks clinician. The sessions are done at home. Families usually find the third week the hardest, which is exactly why the coaching is built in rather than optional.
No. Cogmed trains one specific cognitive capacity; it is not a treatment for ADHD as a whole. Grand Oaks does not prescribe — we are Psychologists and Clinical Therapists — so decisions about medication stay with your physician or a prescriber, and we coordinate with them with your consent.
Coverage varies by plan, and cognitive training is handled differently from therapy and from testing by most insurers. Our Intake Team checks your specific benefits and tells you what the programme will cost before you commit to it, not afterwards.
Related
Not sure which of these fits? That is what the first call is for. Phone (847) 549-1189 and our Intake Team will talk it through with you before anything is booked.
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