Brain Pro Scholarship Available

I couldn't not put this on my blog as a benefit to those who are interested in Brain Pro's Fast ForWard program:  

Here is the copy of the email I received:

 Dear Amanda,

You are invited to apply to the first ever Fast ForWord at Home Scholarship!

One scholarship recipient will receive four months of access to the Fast ForWord exercises, provided through the BrainPro service, which provides you and your child with a trained consultant that will help you understand the exercises and coach your family so you make maximum progress while on the program.

The Fast ForWord exercises are so effective because they target the underlying causes of reading and learning difficulty, instead of putting a band-aid on them. Take matters into your own hands and apply for the scholarship today!

Click here for the Scholarship application  and good luck!  You will need to spend time writing short answers on the application :)

Almost a Year Later for Fast ForWord

I have to still say that Fast ForWord is the best thing that has happened to my family!  And its rewards have been doing their 'thang for almost a year :)  My DD is still going strong and she hasn't lost any of her gains made from the program.

When issues of reading concerns come up in conversations, I always ask if they have considered this program. Unfortunately, not many people are familiar with it so I refer them to the BrainPro website and tell them to search for my blog about the process if they are interested.  Sometimes I'm curious if anyone uses the program after our conversation so if this blog has been helpful to you in your choice of programming, I would love a comment below! :)

Overall, I'd say that the biggest improvement is in her ability to learn something new in a timely manner.  I no longer need to purchase 5-7 different text and work textbooks that cover the same material 5-7 different ways for the sheer repetition of it. She has only 1 math textbook, which is now at grade level!, and she can comprehend the new information as it is introduced and reviewed in just one program.  She has only 1 cursive workbook, 1 phonics workbook, and only 1 spelling workbook!  More importantly, she is able to handle her workload without the added emotional stress of "I can'ts."  We can progress through her curriculum at a good pace, without needing to take calming breaks, relearning episodes, or intense scaffolding.  This all leads to her ability to feel competent in her work and, interestingly enough, responsible for her education.

This may seem like small stuff and you may think I'm over crediting the program, but if you were to really know where we were for YEARS before the tremendous gains from Fast ForWord, the program's impact speaks for itself.  Reread my last paragraph without the improvements and you may get a glimpse of how difficult things were for her, for me as a parent and teacher.  We are truly thankful :)

(March 24, 2014)

Music on the Brain

Great news!  My obsession with learning about neuroscience and various disabilities will have an end goal that will benefit more than just my family!  :)

I am partnering with a good friend and local piano teacher to develop a music program that incorporates music, brain based methodologies, and neuroscience to accelerate not only musical performance but human development.  Who knew there was another person eager and giddy to read neuroscience textbooks and research?!  Combined with her musical expertise and business venue, we are able to team up together to combine our talents and create an innovative brain based music program.

We have found several possible grants and are looking into possible partner foundations for our research and implementation goals.

Brain Pro Webinar Participant!

I am very excited about my upcoming participation in a Brain Pro webinar.  I will give an overview of my (and my DD's) experience with the program after a neuroscientist speaks about the program's benefits!  

The company has a great list of downloadable webinars you can listen to in addition to live webinars.  Check out this list of webinars!

Hope you will join us on August 5, 2013 at noon!

Free Webinars for Educators - Improve Students' Learning Ability

Free Webinars for Educators - Improve Students' Learning Ability

Beyond Fast ForWord: Growth

It is now July of 2013 and my DD's growth from the program is still strong!  She still struggles with listening accuracy with specific sounds (/i/ and /e/) that we are targeting with a great speech program called LiPS that the Consultant highly recommended.  With that said, it has not slowed her overall reading fluency down and this program teaches her to feel the sound and the correct mouth/tongue placement.  Her previous strategy was to give up or stare at the page.  Big improvement with the auditory word recognition and phonological memory!  

The Consultant also said to continue with her music instruction as the piano will continue to improve her listening accuracy and auditory sequencing.  Both of the Consultant's recommendations have continued to develop her skills after Fast ForWard.

Her sustained attention continues to improve slowly as she gains more and more confidence in her new abilities.  Her previous "can'ts" have hurt her desire to try things that were difficult for her prior to the program.  I'm truly amazed at how well and quickly she is reading now, even though she will only read the first page of any book.  It will take time for her to trust her own abilities again.

I also have to note that her ability to comprehend numeracy greatly improved after the program.  It was immediate.  It was like her brain just didn't have to work at pulling out the names for what the "number picture" was on the page or in conversation.  She went from one on one coaching to her telling me what every number she saw was called!  "It's 77 degrees out today," "It has been 30 minutes," and on and on!  And, she could read all the directions in her course work to herself in order to complete an activity!!!!!  (This was huge for us!)  She could follow her own directions!

I just can't say enough good things about Fast ForWard as it changed not only my DD's quality of life, but ours as well.

Thank you for following our journey!  

By The Numbers: A Look at Results

Our last program day was May 30, 2013.  I feel like quoting...

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, ... it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us ...  

Charles Dickins, A Tale of Two Cities

 This program brought us the best of times and yet some days (especially during the final count down) it was the worst of times.  This program became the spring of hope for our reading and listening difficulties and yet some days seemed like the winter of despair as we struggled to complete another day.  This program put everything before us at our fingertips for success and yet we had nothing before us as a concrete formula for guaranteed success.  But alas! We triumphed!  And I have the numbers to prove it.

In May 2012, I brought my DD to our local school district for an Academic Evaluation.  The Special Education Department teachers met with my DD five times for evaluations.  

Let me highlight a few of the findings from each Evaluator as particularly pertains to skills addressed in the Fast ForWord program.

Special Education Teacher evaluation:

• (T) provided the sound for lower case i and did not respond to lower case u.
• When given a writing prompt, she wrote a two word sentence but then was able to verbally provide extensive details to her frog narrative.
• (T) required verbal prompting, positive praise, tangible reinforcement and breaks between tasks in order to remain on-task and follow directions.
• (T) demonstrates average grade and age level appropriate skills within reading, math, and writing.

Speech/Language Evaluation:

• Throughout testing, (T) had a difficult time attending to task.
• The CELF-4 and CTOPP tests were administered. She tested in the 47% for receptive language, 53% for language structure, 16%, 3%, and 2% for rapid naming skills.  Her Overall Phonological Awareness percentile rank was 77%, Phonological Memory rank was 58%, and her Rapid Naming Composite was 3%.
• On the sentence structure subtest, she demonstrated a relative weakness in her ability to interpret spoken sentences of increasing length and complexity.
• Expressive vocabulary was an area of relative weakness and she used strategies for recall and associative meaning.
• (T) score in rapid naming, the ability to efficiently retrieve information from her long term memory, fell in the poor range.  Students who present with difficulties on rapid naming are expected to have difficulty reading fluently.

Psychologist's Evaluation:

• She required frequent redirection from the examiner.
• On the Verbal Composite, which measures a child's ability to process verbal information and apply verbal skills, she was at 45th percentile.   Information subtest was 37% rank by age, Vocabulary was 25% by age, and Word Reasoning was 75% by age.
• Her Processing Speed Composite, which measures the speed of mental operations and graphomotor processing, was in the 42nd percentile. She did better on a visual scanning task for matching.  The subtest for Coding was 25% by age.

As a parent and and home educator with a strong background  rehabilitative practices, these results put numbers to our needed target areas.  Personally, I saw "Dyslexia" written all over these results in addition to her auditory processing issues.  She relied heavily on visual and context clues for comprehension which was putting a strain on her working memory.  I conceded that it was the brain that needed rewiring for her to improve efficiently and effectively.

I compiled the following table for her Fast ForWord results for a comparison.

Skill Groups	Starting %	Ending %	Total Minutes
Listening accuracy and auditory sequencing	0	29	553
Phonological accuracy	6	69	326
Phonological fluency and sustained attention	0	20	313
Vocabulary and auditory word recognition	0	100	157
Auditory word recognition and phonological memory	0	100	501
Following directions	4	97	300
English language conventions	6	100	172

How amazing is that!