V/V at home? Looking for info @ Fast ForWord

Ari,

Fast ForWord is a more complex CD rom program which helps some kinds of auditory processing issues. The fee to the company for one child to use it is $850 plus you have to pay the provider fee which may be several more hundred dollars. As you can see, it is a more complex decision as compared to Earobics which is very inexpensive.

http://www.scientificlearning.com/

If you are trying to do these programs yourself, my advice is, learn one, try it, then go on to another.

Janis

You can buy the V&V book and do it at home. Many parents have done this successfully.

Some parents find IdeaChain (http://www.mindprime.com) easier than V&V because all of the lesson plans are laid out, complete with benchmarks so you know when the child is ready to move on. Both programs work on developing visualization skills.

Did the LMB clinic mention LiPS? I would think they would have recommended doing LiPS before Seeing Stars, to develop phonemic awareness. If you do a search on “phonological awareness” at Amazon, you will find several good books on exercises you can do at home to develop phonemic awareness. Check to see if your library has these books.

I posted about FastForWord on the homeschooling board.

Nancy

Ari,

It sounds like you need a lot more help than you first realized. VV is very self explanatory but it helps to have a trained professional in guiding you through the process. Here are some ideas I had and perhaps this may help guide you in getting speech services for your child.

I have been where you are as a parent and as an SLP who is trained in LMB programs. Do you have health insurance? Because if you do, go into the pediatrician’s office and have him make a referral for speech therapy. You can also try to get services through the public school or through a university that has a speech and language training program. An SLP can direct you in all of his weak areas as they are language based. If you have insurance this will offset the cost of the speech therapy. Also there is a great website that has speech and language games on-line by Tracy Boyd that may help you with your child.

If you can’t afford Fast for Word you can also try Earobics or Autoskills’ academy of Reading programs. There are lots of ways to approach this but if LMB states he is scoring low on language he really should be seen by an SLP in conjunction with your homeschooling program.

Nancy,

Since Seeing Stars also has a phonemic awareness component, they are sometimes recommending it without LiPS for kids who do no have severe p.a. deficits. My child has good code knowledge and Seeing Stars was also recommended for her. She really doesn’t need LiPS as she can discriminate sounds.

Ari,

I definitely agree with Patti that you should have a speech/language eval done and try to get some services from an SLP familiar with reading disorders.

Janis

thank you for the info. I checked out understandmore.com. It sounds interesting. The cost is more than V/V ( that’s if I don’t do the training workshop or purchase training videos). I’m just not sure which will be a better program ? Can V/V be done without all the training ? Or is it worth it to do it ? or is IdeaChain worth it ? I wish I could see samples, but they don’t do it . Help

Hi Ari,

I am an adult who has a combination of problems that seems similar to your son. One mistake I have made in the past which I caution you on is rushing into remediation without knowing exactly what is going on. It has caused alot of frustration and heartache. I know the Lindamood Bell Folks did some testing but personally, I would follow Patti M’s advice.

It would also seem to me that you would want to concentrate on remediations for the phonemic awareness problems first before jumping into V&V or idea chain. I hope the reading professionals will chime in on this since that is just my amateur opinion and obviously, I don’t know that for sure.

Good luck.

PT

Ari,

Have you had any speech and language assessments done recently? You can e-mail me with the specific scores and percentiles and I will look them over. In order for your son to make progress you can’t use a shotgun approach. His deficits need to be prioritized and you need to have an organized plan to hit things one at a time with each skill building on another skill. Otherwise, both of you are going to get frustrated and he won’t make as rapid progress.

I am willing to help as I can see that you are scrambling. Been there done that myself and that is why I chose to become an SLP.