In this guide
What is Elevate?
Elevate is a brain training app designed to help users improve cognitive skills including vocabulary, memory skills and maths. Users build these skills by completing games and brain teasers on the app. Elevate tracks performance on these games and presents users with an Elevate Proficiency Quotient (EPQ) to show how they are improving their skills over time.
Elevate is available for download on Android and iOS devices. The app requires a paid subscription to use, costing £9.99 per month or £39.99 per year. Users get a 7-day free trial when they create an account, giving an opportunity to try out the app before subscribing. Users must be at least 13 years old to create an account.
How it works
When you first open Elevate, the app asks which skills you’d like to improve, such as vocabulary, memory and writing.
The app will then ask if you have ADHD, before giving you a quick quiz to determine your current cognitive abilities. This quiz involves selecting the right word to fill in the gap in a sentence, doing maths problems and selecting the word that fits an image shown. After completing the quiz, the app shows your EPQ score and asks you to choose which subscription you want.
Once you’ve chosen your subscription, you can start using Elevate fully. The app recommends completing 5 games each day to complete your daily training. The app focuses these games on five categories: reading, writing, speaking, math, and memory. Each game takes only a few minutes to complete, so users can play them in short bursts throughout the day.
Like many other skill-building apps, Elevate has a gamified system that encourages users to keep using it every day. Users have a streak count that keeps track of how many consecutive days they have trained on the app. Getting this number up is satisfying, and if users have a high streak count, they will be motivated to continue using the app so that they don’t lose this streak.
Users can also receive badges and achievements based on their streaks and performance in games and can view their performance against other Elevate users in a rankings leaderboard.
Elevate parental controls
Elevate does not offer any parental controls. Users must be at least 13 years old to start an account, meaning no young children should be on the app. The content on the app is appropriate for all ages. Younger children may struggle to understand some of the vocabulary and maths problems though.
While Elevate does not have in-app parental controls, it is available only on iOS and Android. This means parents can use the parental settings on these devices to limit app usage.
Benefits of Elevate
- Fun, engaging games
- Potential to improve writing and cognitive ability
- Quick games so can be done in short bursts
- Gamification encourages daily use
What to watch out for
The gamification of Elevate, with fun games and incentives to play every day, could lead to increased screen time. While Elevate is a beneficial app to spend time on, you should still keep an eye on your child to ensure they’re not spending too much time on screens.
There has been some debate over the effectiveness of brain training apps. Some studies say they can improve cognitive abilities and slow down mental decline, while other studies find them ineffective. Elevate is focused on language and math skills, so even if it does not directly benefit cognitive ability it can still improve the user’s skills in these areas.
While Elevate can improve skills, children should not just rely on brain training apps to develop mentally. Developing critical thinking skills will help your child make more informed decisions and stay safer online.