I have very complicated feelings about brain balance. First off, it's a huge monetary and time commitment. Before enrolling we did a lot of research and decided that it would be worth it for our son who has been diagnosed with autism and ADHD. When speaking with the main initial point of contact, I asked him if children see regressions or if they have children who need to do Brain Balance multiple times and he assured me that it wasn't the case and that the 6 months would be enough. I also asked why it's not covered by insurance like other therapies and he said that it wasn't yet accepted as a standard medical treatment. We enrolled in the 6 month program.
In the first 3 months we did see changes to our son's self esteem, social performance, and the way he interacts with his younger sister. They play together much better now than they did before we started.
After those 3 months, it seemed like we were seeing diminished returns. We continued with the program, because there was no way to get our money refunded. His coaches all seemed to be just college students and there were never any real therapists on site. Our monthly "checkup" meetings were always the exact same, and they were also with non-professionals who weren't trained to give any sort of advice, but were just there to update us on what we were going through.
We became close with the employees because we would see them 3 days a week and we even grew fond of one of them and have chatted with them outside of Brain Balance. We never felt we were being "scammed" by the program, but it felt a little more like the program itself needs some refinement. Would have loved to see some sort of social training as well, but because the whole program was mainly balance and physical aptitudes, none of the coaches were trained to do more than just coach physical fitness aspects of Brain Balance.
At the end of our 6 months, the Brain Balance coordinator tried to sell us on additional time in the program, which seemed against what the initial person had promised us when we were signing on. Obviously, this was our experience, so not everyone may go through the same things as us. It was difficult for us to pay for this program and we had to take out a loan that we will be paying off for the next 5 years or so. We also liked the program, but wish it could have offered a little more. Just weeks after Brain Balance ended, our son has ended up in some serious trouble at school, which was a big reason why we wanted to do the program in the first place. Obviously, our child is not every child though, but if you read this far, you're seriously considering Brain Balance and ought to know our experience with it.