A few weeks before the fourth birthday of my twin autistic nephews, I scoured the internet and chatted up a few tech guys on my Facebook friends list in search of the perfect present. I wanted to get them something they would actually use, but no autistic-friendly gadget seemed to hack it for me at first. Interactive pop-up books? Friendly robots? Balance bikes? A games console with sensors?

My quest finally led me to a product called the Mente headband, but being the sceptic that I am, I decided to set a meeting with the neuroscientist behind the invention. Less than a fortnight later, I was sitting in the board room of the new AAT Research premises, discussing the features of the gadget with Adrian Attard Trevisan.

Before he walked me through the design and production process of the headband, which he started working on around eight years ago, he was quick to tell me that the road to the present was a bumpy one, but “a challenge isn’t a challenge if it’s easy, right?”

Dr Attard Trevisan was living abroad while studying for his doctorate in neuroscience at the London Metropolitan University when he visited his friends at their summer residence. Their five-year old boy, who had Asperger’s Syndrome and whom he grew fond of by observing closely, became the inspiration behind his first neuro-rehabilitation concept.

Mente couldn’t have come to be without the invaluable help of a team of scientists, some of whom stood by Dr Attard Trevisan’s side since the days he used to run the company from his mother’s kitchen. They were responsible for developing the hardware and software and running clinical tests on the device within a sterilised cleanroom before sending it overseas for further tests. They put together something anyone would be proud of.

The Mente headband and the Brain Music System software together make up an innovative medical device that provides therapeutic treatment based on sonified neurofeedback to people suffering from Autism Spectrum Disorder and other neurological conditions. In laymen terms, the brainwaves of the patient wearing the band would be converted to music, challenging their brain to operate more successfully in the same way that physical exercise develops muscle strength and improves one’s physical health.

With effort and consistent trial and error learning over a span of time, this form of therapy, which can easily take place outside a clinical environment, has been proven to considerably reinforce one’s mental fitness. Brain patterns are detected by sensors within the band, saved in a compliant format and transferred onto a system that can be accessed from any device at any time.

The headband is portable and non-invasive: the patient can opt to take it off at any point without incurring any damage. “It’s a piece of purely assistive wearable technology,” as Dr Attard Trevisan nicely coined the term.

The second generation of Mente improved on its predecessor by running on Wi-Fi instead of Bluetooth, which means signals can be read from a longer distance. Its four EEG channels have replaced the two channels present in the first version, allowing for greater volumes of data-gathering

Data are stored on a cloud server, so they can be accessed from a variety of operating systems in real time. In case one loses the device or damages it, no inform-ation is lost. The device is accompanied by a more detailed manual guide and a functional activation card with a code on it. This code, which is specific to each and every device, lets the research team at AAT know if there is anything wrong with the device without having to actually touch the device itself.

The app for the Brain Music System can save up to 10 users.

So far, so great. Now, how do my twin nephews join the 200 active local users and start benefiting from this device?

I will have to wait until my next pay cheque before I can ride the neurowaves in aid of autism. But which parent or relative wouldn’t go the extra mile to witness their loved ones making progress?

Stephanie Calleja is a copywriter with two twin autistic nephews who wants to contribute to the celebration of World Autism Awareness Day on April 2.