Rebuilding Student Focus: Neuroscience-Informed Cognitive Training | Dominick Fedele

Educators across grade levels are observing a consistent pattern: students are increasingly distracted, mentally fatigued, and less able to sustain focus during academic tasks. These challenges affect reading comprehension, problem-solving, written expression, and overall learning stamina. This episode examines the cognitive and neurological foundations behind these trends and explores how neuroscience-informed innovation may support learning readiness.

Drawing on research in neuroplasticity and cognitive development, the discussion highlights how core brain systems—including attention regulation, working memory, processing speed, response inhibition, and visual control—play a critical role in students’ ability to engage in sustained learning. The episode explores how stress, digital overstimulation, anxiety, and sleep disruption can place strain on these systems, reducing cognitive efficiency in classroom settings.

Guest Dominick Fedele, CEO and founder of Mastermind Cognitive Training, shares insights into the development of targeted cognitive training exercises designed to strengthen foundational brain skills through structured, repeated practice. The conversation examines how short, gamified training sessions aim to leverage neuroplasticity to enhance focus, learning stamina, and academic readiness. Assessment models used to measure cognitive growth are also discussed, along with early feedback from educators and families.

This episode provides educators with a research-informed perspective on cognitive readiness and offers insight into how structured brain-based practice may complement classroom instruction. It invites reflection on how strengthening underlying cognitive systems may help students engage more effectively in learning while supporting teachers in managing diverse attention needs.

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Transcript

The Growing Focus Problem

Dr. Lisa Hassler 0:19

Many educators are noticing the same trend. Students are more easily distracted and mentally tired than they used to be. So today we explore ways to strengthen focus during learning with an innovative approach to cognitive training. In each episode, I discuss problems we as teachers and parents are facing and what people are doing in their communities to fix it. What are the variables? And how can we duplicate it to maximize student outcomes? Teachers across the country are noticing the same pattern. Students are becoming more easily distracted, mentally tired, and less able to sustain focus during learning. Neuroscience helps explain why. Core cognitive systems like working memory, processing speed, and inhibitory control, the skills that allow students to hold information, stay on task, and manage distractions, are under more strain than in previous years. Cognitive neuroscientist Dr. Adele Diamond has shown that these systems are highly sensitive to stress, overload, and fatigue, yet also remarkably trainable through repeated targeted practice thanks to the brain's neuroplasticity. Adding to this picture, educational psychologist Dr. John Sweller's cognitive load theory explains that when the brain's working memory becomes overwhelmed by complex instructions, simultaneous tasks, and constant digital stimulation, learning efficiency drops. Many teachers see this as students losing momentum more quickly, becoming overwhelmed sooner, and struggling to engage with sustained academic tasks. Recent development and educational reports also note post-pandemic declines in learning stamina paired with the constant stimulation of digital environments. And academically, these cognitive constraints affect everything from reading comprehension to problem solving. The promising news is that emerging research shows cognitive training can strengthen these underlying skills. Through structured practice, gamified exercises, and targeted repetition, schools are beginning to explore how strengthening the brain's core systems can better support learning readiness, focus, and confidence. Here to discuss the growing focus challenge is Dominic Fidelli, CEO and founder of Mastermind Cognitive Training. Dominic is at the intersection of neuroscience, vision training, and gamified technology, designing tools that strengthen the cognitive systems students rely on for focus, memory, and learning. At Mastermind, he oversees product vision, research initiatives, and global partnerships, all centered on one mission to help students learn better by strengthening the brain itself. Dominic, welcome to the show.

Dominick Fedele 3:30

Thanks for having me. Looking forward to it.

Dr. Lisa Hassler 3:32

So you've worked across education, health, and the performance sectors. What led you to focus specifically on cognitive training as the solution to today's attention challenges?

Dominick Fedele 3:42

Well, it was interesting. I had an opportunity coming from education and then working with a company that worked with kids who struggled with a lot of neurodevelopmental needs. I started looking for technology solutions to implement into our business and got to meet with neuroscientists, therapeutic developers, cognitive specialists, and other educators to really see what existed. And it was so interesting to see such a diverse grouping of ed tech opportunities. But I really dove into this gamified concept of cognitive training. And really the goal being, how do we help the foundational skills necessary to learn rather than just trying to drive, you know, how do we drive a new curriculum? How do we try and just deal with a student as they are? Because the goal for us is really to drive cognitive readiness, cognitive function. So when they go into a classroom, they're able to be ready to learn, absorb more, and be able to give out more. So it was really just a learning by meeting with people and learning more and more about neuroscientists and where brains are today.

Tech, Anxiety, And Sleep Impacts

Dr. Lisa Hassler 4:52

So when educators say that students are struggling to stay focused, what is happening to the brain and which cognitive systems are under strain today?

Dominick Fedele 5:02

Yeah, it's it's really interesting. You probably hear it all the time about technology really changing brain patterns and habits. And what has happened is we are being driven every day to go towards quick, intense stimuli. And we want these shiny objects very quickly, and then as soon as we have it, we want to go to the next one. And that these fast switches keep you from ever really focusing on one thing. So what's happening is there's becoming a greater and greater weakness related to focusing on standardized, steady information and processes. And that starts to take you away from deep focus. So more and more, you're strengthening the habits of quick in and out, intense action, and less on things that you need to focus on over time to really understand and engage with. So that's a major issue when it comes to technology. But you have the anxiety factor so many times now here about people struggling with anxiety, and it's real and it's difficult. When you have anxiety, it takes away from your brain's ability to put resources towards attention and memory. So there's only a limited amount of resource your brain has. And when you start taking away from putting more in one area, you're taking away from others. And then the last thing I'll say is this is a pet topic of mine, is sleep. More and more people aren't getting the quality sleep that they need. Some of it is from technology, from some of it's from hectic schedules. I'll share quickly. I'm on a school today doing testing for students on a new research project. And seven out of the 10 this morning have come in for eye testing and are failing eye fatigue tests. And when you ask them what's going on, well, I didn't sleep well. I was up all night playing video games. They were doing these different things. And that's a factor too that I think also goes on overlooked.

Dr. Lisa Hassler 6:56

Is there anything specifically that you're doing to target eye fatigue or the complications that are happening because of that?

Dominick Fedele 7:02

Yeah, so we built in a full battery of eye movement and control exercises. And one of the biggest issues out there is the ability for an individual to control their eye movements, to keep them fixated, to keep them moving smoothly. And that actually impacts how you take in information and process quickly and make decisions. You know, I mentioned I'm testing at a school today. We do deep eye testing on students to measure their control. And we do full reading assessments to see actually how they read. You can see how their eyes move across the page and then how they comprehend and test against it. And there are so many kids and adults where you might anticipate when you're following a ball across a screen, it's just going flat. But when you test it, the eyes could be fluttering and moving around. And that makes everything different. And I know when I was a parent of small kids, I would always say, just read your homework, get things done, do what you're supposed to do. And then I had an awakening one day to realize it wasn't a lack of wanting to do the homework. It was reading a paragraph, it was like running a marathon because their eyes didn't go line by line. They were going and fluttering all over the page and having to reread line after line just to get through. So there's a con there's a physiological issue with eye control that drives a lot when it comes to learning and especially reading.

Dr. Lisa Hassler 8:32

So does this have anything to do with attention when it comes to the eyes, or is it just a physical tracking?

Visual Training That Boosts Attention

Dominick Fedele 8:40

Yeah, it I would say both. When it comes to attention, when your eyes are fluttering, when you can't fixate on anything longer than you know, a couple seconds, you're all over the place. Yeah. If you can stabilize and get those eyes to move more smoothly and fixate and jump from near and far more efficiently, you can actually drive attention improvement.

Dr. Lisa Hassler 9:02

So you're doing some visual training as well in your programs. I had a child that had tracking problems. We would do eye training with a pencil tip of an eraser to strengthen those eyes.

Dominick Fedele 9:14

We tried to take a lot of these manual exercises and build them into technology to facilitate.

Dr. Lisa Hassler 9:20

So do you think things like having a scheduled time to shut off devices would help with something like that?

Dominick Fedele 9:26

Without question. Especially just going back to what we're talking about, these intense bursts. When you're looking at a screen, you can be sucked in and sucked in by so much information and shiny bells and whistles that it just keeps you going. And it's the whole concept of you can scroll for hours and hours that doesn't do well when it comes to learning and applying learning and memory and other areas.

Device Boundaries And Lesson Design

Dr. Lisa Hassler 9:52

Do you think then that that impacts how we're developing lesson plans? Because if the brain is starting to develop those habits, is that something that teachers need to be cognizant of so that they can maybe create lessons that will hit that? Or do we need to say, no, push the brakes? We need to be completely away from that.

Dominick Fedele 10:12

Well, the the teacher's job is so hard because you can have a classroom. You know, I was just in a classroom the other day of 30 kids. Yeah. And there the needs and issues and opportunities are so diverse. And we have one or maybe a teacher and an assistant trying to work with this class under one curriculum. And it's just very, very difficult. And that's where we come in, or that's that's the at least approach we're looking at is how do we develop the foundational skills, attention, memory, executive function, response inhibition, processing to where we don't educate, but they can go into a classroom and they're ready to learn, and these areas of the brain are on to make the teacher's life easier, where they're not trying to develop curriculum for every student, but they have students that are more ready to learn what they are going to bring to the class that day.

Building Foundational Readiness

Dr. Lisa Hassler 11:03

When we had come back to the classroom after COVID, I noticed the attention really shortened during that period of time. And their ability to sustain sitting, thinking, writing, processing was inhibited. It was as though I was training them to be able to have sustained focus one day at a time, one more minute, add it, add it, add it, until we got to the point where, all right, we're we're all back where we kind of should be. That reminded me of how when I started my dissertation work, there was like enormous amounts of reading that we would have to do, incredible amounts. And that first semester, I remember like my brain hurt. It was like, how much more can I shove into this? It is, you know, it was just too much at a point. And you and you hear about like, you know, too much coming in and it'll just at a at some point rolls off of you. But it physically hurt, like it was too much. And my professor had said everyone is gonna feel something called disequilibrium. It is where you are stretching your brain in the sense of its capacity to take on those longer sustained thinking, concentrating habits. And once I got to it, I was fine. And I felt like that's what I was doing with my students as well. And that is kind of what reminds me of what you're doing. When you talk about neuroplasticity, then can you expand on what is it and then how targeted exercises strengthen the brain's learning capacity?

Neuroplasticity Explained

Dominick Fedele 12:34

So neuroplasticity is the ability to drive new or more efficient neuropathways in the brain. And then exactly what you just said, it's targeting those areas to make them stronger and to develop these pathways. I look at it, you work the brain like a muscle, like any other. And if you want to work your biceps, you're going to do curls and you're going to do a lot of them over time with that repetition, and they get stronger. It's the same thing in the brain. If you work these areas of the brain over and over with a lot of repetition, but a lot of different layers where you're adding things in and functions that you're doing, you can drive a stronger, more efficient brain. And that's the entirety of what we're trying to do is tap into those neural networks and make them a stronger connection to bring in information, process faster, utilize their memory, and react with decisions.

Dr. Lisa Hassler 13:27

Your platform uses gamified cognitive training and it uses tablets and VR. I'm interested. How does that work in practice?

Dominick Fedele 13:36

Well, what we wanted to do is develop a training platform that was going to meet people where they're at. So many people just look at technology and say, it's bad for you, it releases dopamine, you play for 16 hours straight, get rid of it. It's not going away. And we wanted to meet people where they are, which so many people are used to video games. So we wanted to create a spoonful of sugar to make the medicine go down effect in a lot of ways. So we made our training games look and feel like video games. In virtual reality, it's full 360, immersive, gives a lot of depth. With the tablet, you can do the same thing where you're dedicating these exercises to your brain. And when someone feels like they're in a common environment, in this case, a video game, it makes them relax, it makes it have a little fun. You could have leaderboards, you can have fun with it. You could have training where you're shooting a blaster or where you're hitting something with paddles. But it can still be really targeted brain training, which is what our program is. So what we're finding is people are enjoying training, even though it is not a video game from the standpoint of when you train for 20 minutes per day, these kids will take off the headset and they're done because it does tax your brain a little bit. It is like a workout, it makes you a little tired, which is good. You're doing things that you're supposed to be doing. So it's not something that you'll play for hours and hours and hours, but we make it fun enough that they want to continue training because repetition is the whole key to drive change. We tell people all the time if you do it once per week, you're you're just not doing enough. We recommend two or three or more days per week. And we are in schools, so we've embedded into curriculum. We've partnered with groups that do after-school programs. We've also have at-home options. As long as somebody has a virtual reality headset, uh, we use MetaQuest or tablet, Android or Apple, or even mobile phone, which we have as a companion training piece. You can train wherever you'd like.

Dr. Lisa Hassler 15:42

How do you measure improvement or performance?

Dominick Fedele 15:45

Great question. So, what we have a full battery of assessments built into the training. So not only do you just go in and train, the first thing you do is the fixed part assessment. Three of the tests are clinical in nature, and three are performance-based. And at the end of that, you'll be given a report measuring your performance on each of the tests, but also giving you scores related to your focus and attention, your working memory, your processing speed, inhibition. And every 24 sessions of training, you will be reassessed and you'll be able to see over time the improvement in these different areas that are measuring your foundational skill set and your cognition. It's being picked up by universities in their research studies now where they're using our assessment to measure pre and post results on their platforms. So that's really been great to see.

Dr. Lisa Hassler 16:38

What kinds of feedback are you getting from students, from teachers?

Teacher, Student, And Parent Feedback

Inside A Training Game

Dominick Fedele 16:43

The teachers, I think, up front have always been a little hesitant. And when they see it in practice and understand that these aren't video games, even I sometimes want to stop calling them games because it gives the connotation that these are just games. When they see what we're doing, where we're driving executive function because of layered cognitive focus and cognitive skills and working those at once, and they start seeing the difference. When they see their student actually start to have better focus and attention, they're reading more efficiently. That's when they still they start to really get one over because not only do they the students like doing it, they're seeing the results, and it's making their job easier for them because they have students coming in that are ready to learn. From a student perspective, they enjoy it just because it is a break in the day and they play some form of video game. Like I said, it can be difficult to get through. A training session is about 15 to 20 minutes, but they enjoy doing it even though it's hard work. And that's always a hard needle to thread to make something that's fun enough, but is also really delivering something that is important and difficult to get people to do. But, you know, it is interesting too. We see teachers at times, hey, if you work really hard today, we'll get you into your mastermind training. So that's been fun to see. I'll say one more group is the parents. And there's nothing better than hearing parents say, we hear this all the time, I don't know what you're doing in this VR headset or on the tablet, but we're seeing a difference. You know, we work with more than just education. We work with athletes, we work with firefighter organizations, we work with seniors. And the good thing is it has benefit that goes beyond the classroom. When you're developing foundational brain skills like focus and attention, memory, et cetera, it applies to so many different areas of life. And we are seeing parents of athletes that are saying they're getting better in school and on the field. We're getting employees on jobs that are saying they're more focused at work and doing a better job. That's why I always go back that the focus on these foundational skills has so many applications, but our dedication of focus is really on academics.

Dr. Lisa Hassler 18:58

Like what is an activity or a game that you would have a student go through?

Dominick Fedele 19:03

Yeah, I'll give you a basic one. So, for example, you will be prompted with different shapes, different colored shapes. At the top of the screen, it will have a blue triangle and a green circle. And you will only, and they will be coming at you in ball in those shapes with distractor shapes and distractor colors.

Dr. Lisa Hassler 19:25

Okay.

Auto-Leveling Across Ages

Dominick Fedele 19:25

And you have to kind of catch or hit those shapes and colors as they come, and then you can start to layer it, where okay, you hit the green circle only with your right hand, and you hit the blue square with your left hand, and you start layering on different levels of cognitive function and instruction as you get harder and harder. And at the same time, you can have things moving faster, you can have more and more distraction going on, but that's the basic strove of game that we use. We do have over 40 games, so there are a lot of different ways that we go after this. And we did that because not only did we want to gamify it, we don't want it to seem like you're doing the same thing over and over. So we kept building different versions and different functionalities in the games that were going after similar things, but it didn't seem like you were doing the same thing every day.

Dr. Lisa Hassler 20:13

So do you hit all the different areas for each student or are you differentiating it based on their need?

Dominick Fedele 20:20

Yeah, the the program is the same for everyone. And I'm talking, we've gone down as early as five years old and up to 80 years old. Nice. Um, and again, from professional athletes we've had do the program to students that have different issues that they're working through. And we do that because each game doesn't focus on one skill. Each game will focus on four, five, six, seven different skills at once built into that functionality. And the key there is also it auto-levels to the individual. And it will get harder or easier based on their age, their skill level, however they're performing in the game. It will adapt to them and get better over time as they progress.

Dr. Lisa Hassler 21:00

Does it tap out? Is there is there a top tier where you go, you've hit it, you are the best. You can, this is the highest you could be it for focus, or does it just keep on pushing?

Dominick Fedele 21:09

It keeps on pushing. We haven't seen anybody max out any area. We have some that are up there, but the key to it is you can keep training and training over time and get better. And as you might imagine, somebody that's starting at a lower function level, you will see big gains. But even those kids and adults that are high performing individuals, straight A's, everything, we're still able to see incremental improvement. And my favorite story there is we worked with a race car driver. He was looking to get 0.0001% faster and just notching that out to get a little bit better. We've been doing a lot of research on our program and its impact on a lot of aspects in life, especially education. We are going to also start going back to those areas that we've done the research and test people a year, two years, three years, and more down the line to see how well it holds over time.

Dr. Lisa Hassler 22:06

How can teachers implement cognitive training in their classrooms without needing any additional materials?

Access, Demos, And Contact

Dominick Fedele 22:13

Yeah, it's interesting. Right out of the gate, there's no getting around that you need the equipment. You either need our headset. Sets or tablets to facilitate the program. Now, how you facilitate it can be fairly simple. You could build it into the classroom environment as part of the curriculum. You can do it after school. You can do it as homework. We recommend two to three days per week or more in a session that lasts between 12 and 20 minutes per session. The biggest thing, though, is the goal is to make the teacher's job easier by having these prepared students that are ready to pay attention and learn and take in information. So there is a cost from the standpoint of having the equipment. We are a low cost program, so that's not something that was to be a major worry. You have to find the time or how you're going to expect the student to actually do the program.

Dr. Lisa Hassler 23:05

Would parents be able to get this for their child or for their families?

Dominick Fedele 23:08

Absolutely. It's available in all app stores. So the MetaQuest App Store for VR. It's in Apple App Store, Android, Google App Store. So it's a download of an app.

Dr. Lisa Hassler 23:20

Nice.

Dominick Fedele 23:21

But you can actually sample for the basic games to see how the functionality works. So you can try that out.

Closing Insights And Listener CTA

Dr. Lisa Hassler 23:27

Very nice. Have you ever heard of Brain Gym before? It is a throwback of, okay, so Brain Gym was like activities to strengthen your brain, right? This is, of course, before apps, before, you know, any any iPads. One of them was you'd like, you take a piece of paper, ball it up on their right hand, and then they would hold it straight out, and then they would have to look at it, and then they'd have to toss it and catch it, toss it and catch it, and then bring it to the middle, to the left, same thing. Toss it, catch it, toss it, catch it, bring it to the middle, toss it, catch it, right? And the eye tracking in the left to right was one. The ribbon and the figure eight, walking in the figure eight. And the kids really, really loved it. Okay, so parents, teachers, they could go on the app store.

Dominick Fedele 24:11

So it's Mastermind Cognitive Training. Okay. You can go to our website at mastermindtraining.com. And there you could learn more about the program. You can also schedule a live overview where we can meet with you and talk about the program. We'd love doing that. You can download the app in any of the app stores and go through our demo so you can try it out. And you can email me to direct at D F E D E L E at mastermindtraining.com.

Dr. Lisa Hassler 24:39

All right. Well, thank you so much for all of your work that you're doing on the neuroscience cognitive side of learning. I think your insights really helped everybody learn that focus isn't just about effort. It's rooted into brain systems that make that learning possible. And the work that you're doing to strengthen those systems offers schools and teachers, parents a powerful and hopeful new approach. So I really appreciate your time with us today. Thank you.

Dominick Fedele 25:03

Thank you. We're excited and we appreciate you having me.

Dr. Lisa Hassler 25:06

If you have a story about what's working in your schools that you'd like to share, you can email me at Lisa at dr lisaarhassler.com or visit my website at www.drlisaarhassler.com and send me a message. If you like this podcast, subscribe and tell a friend. The more people that know, the bigger impact it will have. And if you find value to the content in this podcast, consider becoming a supporter by clicking on the supporter link in the show notes. It is the mission of this podcast to shine light on the good in education so that it spreads, affecting positive change. So let's keep working together to find solutions that focus on our children's success.