How to Use Helperbird for ADHD and Focus

The web is noisy. Ads, autoplaying videos, flashing banners, and long walls of text all pull your attention in different directions. If you have ADHD or just struggle to stay focused online, Helperbird has a set of tools built to quiet all that down.

Overview

There is no one feature that fixes focus. What helps is stripping away the stuff you do not need and keeping your eyes in the right place. Helperbird does both.

This guide walks through the tools that help most, and how to combine them into a setup that works for you.

Reducing Distractions on the Page

A lot of what makes a webpage hard to focus on is not the text. It is everything around the text. Helperbird can hide most of it.

• Hide images and GIFs removes pictures and animated images from the page.
• Stop animations pauses flashing banners and autoplaying content.
• Disable Helperbird on specific sites lets you turn features off where you do not want them.

For some readers, just hiding images is enough to make a long article feel manageable.

Staying on One Line

ADHD often makes it hard to track which line you are on. Your eyes jump, you re-read, you lose the thread. Helperbird has three tools that keep your eyes where they should be.

• Line Focus dims everything except the line you are reading, like a spotlight. Most people with ADHD find this the most useful of the three.
• Reading Guide puts a solid bar under the line you are on.
• Dyslexia Ruler is a colored bar you can move with your cursor.

Turn on Follow Cursor mode so the focus tool moves with you as you read. Pair it with a slightly darker overlay for a spotlight effect.

Reading Mode and Immersive Reader

Sometimes the best focus tool is just to get rid of the page entirely and show only the text.

• Reading Mode strips a webpage down to just the article text, in a clean layout.
• Immersive Reader opens the content in a focused reader with options for font, spacing, syllables, and parts of speech.

If you find yourself scrolling past the same paragraph three times, switch to one of these and the distraction just disappears.

Text to Speech to Stay Engaged

If your focus drifts while reading silently, hearing the words can pull you back in. Listening and reading at the same time is one of the simplest ways to stay engaged with a long article.

See How to use text to speech in Helperbird for the basics. You can highlight a paragraph and have just that read, or play the whole page from the top.

Try speeding the voice up a little. A lot of ADHD readers find that a slightly faster voice holds their attention better than a slow one.

Notes and Highlights

If you read to remember, writing things down as you go helps a lot more than re-reading later. Helperbird has built-in tools for this so you do not have to switch to another app.

• Web highlighter lets you mark the important parts of a page in different colors.
• Sticky notes let you add your own notes right on the page.
• Notepad gives you a simple writing space that is always a click away.

Your highlights and notes save across pages, so you can come back to them later.

Tips for Staying Focused

• Start with one feature, not ten. If you turn on everything at once it becomes its own distraction. Pick line focus or reading mode and start there.
• Use accessibility profiles. The Focus profile turns on a set of focus tools with one click, so you do not have to set up every feature by hand.
• Try timed reading. Open a long article, turn on reading mode, and give yourself ten minutes. The combination of a clean page and a clear time limit is a strong focus trigger.
• Pair with text to speech. Reading and listening at the same time holds attention better than either one alone.
• Tweak the overlay. A slightly tinted screen can reduce the visual noise that keeps pulling your eyes around.

Related Guides

• How to Use Helperbird for Dyslexia
• How to Use Helperbird for Writing Essays and Assignments
• How to Use Helperbird for Reading Long PDFs
• How to Use Helperbird as a Teacher
• How to Use Accessibility Profiles in Helperbird
• How to Use Helperbird at Home

Need Help?

If you are building a focus setup for yourself or a student and are not sure where to start, reach out to our support team. We are happy to help you pick the right tools.