IM, PACE, Phonographix

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PhonoGraphix is a great way to teach kids to read. I don’t have personal experience with the other programs.

These are all good programs, in my opinion. We did PACE and Phono-Graphix with excellent results, and are planning on doing IM. That doesn’t mean they are suitable for all children, or that every child who does them gets dramatic improvement, or even that there is independent research confirming their worth. You should visit the websites of all of these programs to make sure they sound suitable for your dd. (http://www.learninginfo.com, http://www.readamerica.net, http://www.interactivemetronome.com)

You don’t mention the age of your daughter, and that might make a difference.

One of my big questions is how the provider plans to sequence these therapies. It’s always best to work first on reducing deficits on the sensory/motor level. Vision therapy, language therapy, sensory integration, and Interactive Metronome would all fall into the sensory/motor category. Cognitive therapy would be the next step, and that would be PACE. The final level is academic remediation, which would be Phono-Graphix.

Another question I have is whether auditory processing functions have been checked out. If you have not had a CAPD evaluation by an audiologist, I would recommend this before PACE. CAPD evaluations are a specialty area (most audiologists do not have the training), but you can find specialists in your area at http://pages.cthome.net/cbristol/ This eval is usually covered by medical insurance. A CAPD eval would indicate whether sound therapies might be useful (such as FastForWord, http://www.scilearn.com). Sound therapies fall into the category of sensory/motor therapies.

The reason you want to do as much sensory/motor remediation as possible before PACE is to maximize gains from the program, as PACE is quite expensive.

One other therapy you may want to check out is NeuroNet, especially if there are auditory processing problems. Website is http://www.neuroacoustics.com

Another big question I have is whether your dd might be overloaded with therapies. It’s important to schedule some “down” time in between therapies so everyone can relax and take a breather.

Mary

I became an IM provider so that I could offer this program to my then, 10 year old son who had problems reading. This program has been proven through research to improve attention and focusing skills. These new skills then, help the child attend to tasks such as reading, math, and other tasks. Although I am still quite new at this, ALL of the kids that I have worked with have improve their ability to focus and concentrate. Although this program did not help my son to read better, (IM does not claim to help with reading) it did help him to perform better on timed math drills helped somewhat with processing issues and definently helped him to be better focused. Most of the kids I worked with also did better with sports due to improved coordination. I agree with Mary, doing each of these programs in the correct order is essential.

I am also a PACE provider, again to provide it to my son. I am glad that I did IM first because PACE uses a metronome. Before IM my son had no concept of rhythm. This would have made PACE much more difficult. If attention, focus, or rhythm is not an issue, then IM would not be a high priority. If your child has cognitive issues then PACE would be worth trying.

PACE addesses a lot of different cognitive issues. It also has a reading program called Master the Code. PACE really helped my son with rapid naming and divided attention. It has also helped with processing skills although my son continues to have problems in this area. My son has not completed the Master the Code program but we have already seem improvements with reading. I feel that it is a very good, progressive program to teach each letter sound and then teach reading skills. PACE does, however, require 6 hours of work each week. I am glad we did IM and PACE.

I bought the Phonographix book and gave my son the pre-test. He passed without any problems but still he had definent reading problems. I plan to use this program to teach my 5 year old how to read. I feel that it’s a good reading program. It just wasn’t intense enough for my son who had underlining problems which needed to be addressed first.

Donna,
Would you be so kind as to tell me how you became a pace provider? My son (CAPD) is starting fast forword, I will be his provider. I am doing the cross training presently. I was told that he would probably benefit from pace. By being the provider I will be cutting my expences quite a bit. Any iformation would be appreciated.
Barbara

You sign up for one of the training seminars, held about once every two months. The seminar is a 3-day weekend (Sat, Sun, Mon) in Colorado Springs. (There’s a secondary training site in Florida, if that’s closer.)

It isn’t necessarily less expensive to provide PACE yourself, because in addition to seminar costs you have travel and hotel/meal expenses. However, the company gives parents a price break on the training, and additionally provides a $500 rebate if you put your child through the program within 6 months and report the before and after test scores to the company. You have a year to upgrade your status to a provider (to other children) by paying the additional licensing fee.

One good thing about getting the training yourself is it gives you a lot of flexibility in where, how, and when your child does the tutoring (you don’t have to drive back and forth to tutoring appointments three times a week). Also, children can benefit from “refresher bursts”, or doing the program more than once, or even continuous work with the exercises.

If you email a request for information from the website (http://www.learninginfo.com) or give them a phone call requesting information, the company will email information about the training.

Mary

Dear Barbara,

You will need to have a college degree but otherwise there is no other basic qualification that I know of. Go to… pacetutoring.com to find out more Then sign up for a 2 1/2 day course usually given in Colorado Springs, CO. If you go as a provider, you can take two other people as trainers free.

I was very impressed with the presentation of this material at the conference. The PACE owners/staff are very professional, very helpful, present the information in a way that is easily understood, and go out of their way to make sure you have all the material and information that you need. They were very helpful in answering all of my questions before and after I became a provider. I just can’t say enough about the PACE owner and staff.

If you are planning to become a provider just to train your own child, it would be cheaper to go as a parent rather than a provider. (both parents can go for the price of one) However, if you wish to provide this program to others, you would need to go as a provider. I took a friend who wanted to provide this program to her child. We both hope to be able to provide PACE and MTC to others in our area after our children are finished.

Donna

It looks like Mary and I were typing at the same time. She is correct about the 3 day course. Parents and providers go to the conference and get trained side by side. Parents go for 2 1/2 days and those who want to provide (be providers) PACE to people other than their own child, go for 3 days. The extra 1/2 day is to address business issues. They teach you how to use MCT also at this conference.

Two parents can go to the conference at one rate. People who want to be providers must have a college degree and then can take two others to be their trainers. I wanted to provide this program to my own child but also wanted to be able to provide it to others in my area. Thus, I became a PACE provider.

Our family saved money by me being trained. My son took longer to progress through all of the levels in PACE. Being trained has allowed me to continue without worrying about the additional cost. Plus, it is a lot more flexiable, like Mary said, fitting 6 hours a week into an already busy schedule. I am also planning to provide different parts of this program to my other children. It’s a program that everyone in the family can benefit from.

Donna

Hi Mary! It’s been a long time, but I’m glad to hear you’re doing well.

Just a quick question for you….why are you planning on doing IM? Is there a gap that needs filling left over from when you did PACE? Just curious.

The other thing that is new that needs to be mentioned as a money-saving alternative is that there is now a scaled down home version of PACE that costs about $500 instead of the $1800 + it costs to travel to CO to get trained in the complete program.

We’re doing great on my end….all issues appear to be licked for the time being.

Jenny

Hi Jenny,

Great to hear everything is well!

Dd has some minor coordination problems, and her attention isn’t all it could be, which is why I think IM will help. Actually, IM is one of those programs that helps just about everyone to some extent. I will be doing it myself (got the training package), so I am hoping for some improvement in my piano playing! PACE helped dd’s attention, but I think IM will do more for the coordination. (I think the coordination issues are related to her being right-eyed, left-handed and right-footed.)

Dd is in school part-time this year, but I am homeschooling the major academic subjects. She has a lot of catching up to do in math, grammar and spelling, but it’s all coming. We will be homeschooling during the summer, and another round of PACE will be part of our routine.

Mary

I’m interested in the opinions of those who have been trained in PACE. What do you think of the scaled down version - would there be enough in the program to be effective for kids with LD? The scaled down price makes it more attractive, but would dramatic gains be possible with less exercises?
Thanks,
Wendy

It depends so much on a child’s particular problems, it’s probably impossible to predict. In general, the company recommends the full PACE program for LD kids, as it’s more likely to get dramatic (or at least significant) improvement. The scaled-down version would probably help most kids to some extent (perhaps similar to the results from Audiblox), and would definitely hone skills in non-LD kids, but would necessarily have a lower “hit” rate for solving major problems.

It’s probably possible to get dramatic gains from the scaled-down version — provided the selection of exercises happens to target the specific deficits of a child. Many deficits respond best to a variety of different exercises, all aimed at the same target. Since the full-blown PACE program contains three times as many different exercises, it would have a better chance of remediating major problems.

Hope this is a little clearer than it looks to me on re-reading! Must be one of those days…..

Mary

Wendy,

I just got back from parent training in PACE. The site I went to in Florida was training counselors for their camp in Brainskills at the same time. So I have a pretty good idea of the differences between the two programs.

1. There is less variety in Brainskills. There are number of procedures that have several variations or different procedures that work the same skills in PACE. This is not true in Brainskills.

2. PACE markets itself as a cognitive program. In reality, there are a number of procedures that really are more sensory/motor in nature. This I think is at least part of the reason they get the gains they do. Some were very similar to other therapy my son is currently or has received. There are far fewer of these procedures in Brainskills. Whether this matters, depends on your child’s disabilities. It would matter for my son.

a. There are some procedures that are similar to vision therapy. If your child has visual processing problems, you probably would not want to skip these. However, if he has had vision therapy, you might be OK. My son has had vision therapy but I still notice problems. The OD says he is fine—I think the skills are good enough to make it through testing but not automatic enough for reading, especially since he has auditory processing problems as well. For example, my son still skips lines and words, even though he no longer tests as having a tracking or fixation problem. I think the procedures in PACE should help automate these for my son.

b. In the last couple years PACE has added auditory processing procedures. There are some of these—about half—in Brainskills. My son has CAPD and auditory processing is a major problem for him. I don’t recall any pattern as to which ones were left out but I was pretty zoned from information overload at that point. If your child doesn’t have CAPD and is reliable at associating letters and sounds, it should be OK.

The core of PACE—the cognitive part—is intact in Brainskills. If you need work on visual or auditory memory, processing speed, visual reasoning, visual processing, these are alll there. You can probably tolerate the less variety for the difference in the money. The issue, as I see it, is whether your child’s sensory motor system is intact enough for Brainskills. Otherwise, you won’t see the gains you hope.

Hope this helps.

Beth