Fast ForWord/Headaches

My 10yo dd has always had an unusual number of headaches, so I’ve asked quite a few professionals about them. She also did FFW at home (I got certified). FFW did not cause any of her headaches, although there were times we skipped FFW because she had a headache. One thing to note: my dd does not have auditory processing problems (we did FFW because husband insisted - long story), but rather vision problems — severe congenital astigmatism.

Here are a few things to check out.

I have been told that most headaches in children are caused by muscle tension. What we have observed with my daughter is that she can strain a lot to see, and we think this strain causes the muscles in her neck and shoulders to tense, inducing headache. A child with auditory processing problems might strain to hear during the FFW exercises, causing headache.

Adjusting the volume might help. If it’s a trifle low, this could increase strain.

Another problem may be the length of time spent sitting at the computer. If the ergonomics of the arrangement are not good for the child — and computer set-ups that work for grown-ups are notoriously wrong for the body build of a child — then that can increase muscle tension in the shoulders and neck. The positioning of the mouse especially can be hard on a child.

Some people are extremely sensitive to certain types of light, glare, and/or high contrast. It may help to turn down the contrast on the computer screen, and make sure there is no reflected glare from light bulbs or nearby windows.

If the child has great difficulty with the exercises, I would imagine that just the dread of so much work might help induce a headache.

I have seen no information that FFW itself can cause headaches.

Mary

How did you become cerified? How much are you saving? What are your feelings about FFW? Is it helping your child? My son has an auditory processing problem and we are in the process of seeing an audiologist who is certified in FFW. In speaking to other parents who have used FFW, the results always seem to be that they also need other programs to help their child with their problems e.g. Pace or Lindamood bell. Have you found this to be the case also?

I became certified in FFW last summer in order to offer it to my son, then 7. It costs $150 to become certified via Cross Train (sign in as educator instead of parent on their web site). Then you still have to lease the program for $850. But the slt who had evaluated him (in addition to audiologist) would have charged us $2000 and we still would have done the exercises at home. So basically I saved almost 2,000 by doing a bit of administrative work.

My son’s biggest improvements were in receptive language and auditory memory. He now understands conversations around him, which is a big change. They noticed the change at school too—in speech and resource room—where he had the same teachers as last year.

Fast Forward is a powerful but fairly limited program. My son no longer tested as having decoding CAPD after going through it. For many kids, that is the end of CAPD but not for my son, who also has auditory integration problems. So for us, it was a first step. We now are doing Neuronet for his auditory processing and sensory integration problems. My son is also in vision therapy and we plan to do PACE this summer.

Even in the best of circumstances, FFW won’t teach a child to read. So you need to follow up with a good reading program. We did that also (Phono-graphix Intensive) but with his other problems, it still wasn’t enough. But I know other families who followed up with PG and whose kids were reading on grade level very shortly. Others needed Lindamood. Some of these children had more severe decoding CAPD than my son but my son has a wider variety of problems. Therein, lies the answer—it depends on the nature of your child’s problems how far FFW and a good reading program will take you.

My 9 year old did FFW three years ago. Her language deficit was so severe, along with NUMEROUS other issues, that her speech therapist said she was borderline on whether she could even successfully do FFW. She had stomach aches, headaches, etc.,.- with her anxiety disorder- any type performance of ANY kind broought this on. At the end of an 8 week period we were able to reason with her for the first time in her life, in that she could process language. This alone changed our lives. It cost us $4000.00 because her severity made it so difficult to work within the timeframe, but it was well worth it for us! Good Luck,Sharon G.

Please give me your experiences with cross training. How long did it take you to be a provider? Was it difficult keeping your son interested for 100min.? When did you notice improvement? I’m a little worried because I have no educational back ground (no degrees from university). Will I still be able to successfully provide FFW for my son? How long did you work on the FFW program( 6 week+)? The audiologist we will be seeing will be administering an auditory processing assessment to see if FFW would benefit him but I already know (from school assessments) that my son problem lies in expressive and receptive language. Assessment cost $150 can. plus $850 u.s. plus$1400 can.
for tracking, monitoring, coaching etc… (payed to the audiologist). So I would be saving quite a bit if I did it myself. Any info would be greatly appreciated.
Barbara
Beth wrote:
>
> I became certified in FFW last summer in order to offer it to
> my son, then 7. It costs $150 to become certified via Cross
> Train (sign in as educator instead of parent on their web
> site). Then you still have to lease the program for $850.
> But the slt who had evaluated him (in addition to
> audiologist) would have charged us $2000 and we still would
> have done the exercises at home. So basically I saved almost
> 2,000 by doing a bit of administrative work.
>
> My son’s biggest improvements were in receptive language and
> auditory memory. He now understands conversations around
> him, which is a big change. They noticed the change at
> school too—in speech and resource room—where he had the
> same teachers as last year.
>
> Fast Forward is a powerful but fairly limited program. My
> son no longer tested as having decoding CAPD after going
> through it. For many kids, that is the end of CAPD but not
> for my son, who also has auditory integration problems. So
> for us, it was a first step. We now are doing Neuronet for
> his auditory processing and sensory integration problems. My
> son is also in vision therapy and we plan to do PACE this
> summer.
>
> Even in the best of circumstances, FFW won’t teach a child to
> read. So you need to follow up with a good reading program.
> We did that also (Phono-graphix Intensive) but with his other
> problems, it still wasn’t enough. But I know other families
> who followed up with PG and whose kids were reading on grade
> level very shortly. Others needed Lindamood. Some of these
> children had more severe decoding CAPD than my son but my son
> has a wider variety of problems. Therein, lies the
> answer—it depends on the nature of your child’s problems how
> far FFW and a good reading program will take you.

The CrossTrain self-training tutorial kit is only $100 now. You can order it from the website http://www.scilearn.com if you log into the website as an educator (rather than family). The company does not seem to mind a parent training to provide FFW to a child, so don’t worry about that.

It’s pretty easy to run through the CD-ROM tutorial, study the manuals, and try out the exercises. The multiple choice test on the website (manual tells you how to access it) is pretty easy too. If you fail, it will tell you which questions you got wrong so you can study up and re-take the test.

If you are not computer-savvy, it helps to have access to someone (friend, spouse) who is. For example, you have to know what kind of soundboard is in your computer. If it isn’t of sufficiently high quality and/or doesn’t have an outlet for earphones to plug into it, you will have to buy a new soundboard and put it in. It’s a good idea to back up the training exercises onto floppy disk. If you don’t know how to format a disk, you need to know someone who can do that for you or show you how. My husband took care of all these kinds of things for me, but I know other mothers who have done it all themselves.

The games become very boring, in my opinion. 100 minutes a day is a lot for most children, even when it is broken up into 2 or 3 sessions. FFW is most easily done over summer vacation, when it doesn’t have to compete with school and homework. If you do it during the school year, it’s a good idea to arrange with the school for no homework. Some mothers even arrange to bring children to school late, so they can do FFW during school hours. Some families manage it even on top of a full school day and regular homework, but that has got to be pretty tough and is probably best only for disciplined families and perhaps older children who are more responsible.

You don’t need a college degree to do FFW with your child, at least in most cases. Sometimes a child has such serious problems that FFW is best supervised by a speech pathologist or similar professional who can make suggestions about how to get past sticking points in the games. In most cases, though, a parent working with a child can figure out ways to bypass problems. These boards are a good place to get help, and you can also get help from the company itself. The company’s support seems to be very good.

What does the $1400 fee from the audiologist include? If your child would be training at home rather than in the audiologist’s office, then your savings would be about $1300.

A big advantage of getting certified yourself is that your child can continue on with FFW as long as necessary — up to a year. Although most children can get through the program in 6-8 weeks, some benefit greatly from additional training. Outside providers usually limit it to 8 weeks because they need to move onto the next child in order to keep profit margins reasonable.

Mary

Barb,

I just signed up on their web site and they sent me a package, including several video tapes which confirmed for me that this was the right program for my son. I had to pass an on line test—it is pretty easy and I really didn’t study. The hardest part was managing the sending of data to Scientific Learning. They changed this after we had started so maybe it is easier. So if you are computer literate—that would be a big plus!! I am slightly computer impaired but it was fine after I got the hang of it but their site wasn’t exactly user friendly.

I do have an advanced degree but honestly it didn’t help at all. The program is all computerized—consists of I think 7 “games”. You really don’t do anything. Either my husband or I sat with our son through each one but that didn’t require advanced education.

FFW was difficult for my son and so the hardest part was keeping him going. He never did it straight through, although I know children who do. It is five 20 minute sessions and he would take a break after each one. We also ended up doing it a lot longer than the eight weeks that we would have with a provider. We started dropping off sessions after eight weeks but did some parts of ffw for 4 months (started mid May and stopped Mid september). This is advantage of being a provider—you can do this at no additional cost. It allowed my son to achieve 90% plus on all the “games”.

Be forewarned that it is usually necessary to bribe children to do this. Eventually, as my son saw improvement, it wasn’t necessary but at first it was. He was into Pokemon and I would give him a card a day (cheap packs—fortunately I had not indulged him to date). Kids who need it find it very hard.

I think doing it yourself a big issue is how well you work with your child. We honestly found this to be a challenge but the slt
we spoke to would have had us doing it at home too—and would have charged us $2000 for administrative work. That part was easy. Keeping him going was a challenge at times. The other thing is my son could have never done it straight through. Doing it at home gave us some flexibility. Also, you have to do this five days a week. It was easier to do it at home than to go somewhere. I do know people whose children did it somewhere else and thought it was wonderful, however.

We even packed it up and took it on vacation!!! It was on vacation that I first noticed a big change in my son. I think he had been doing it for 5 or 6 weeks at that time. He picked up on a conversation which wasn’t directed at him—a very adult conversation—and he had never done that before!!

Beth