I know a 2nd grader who is struggling in school with Math and Reading. He has trouble concentrating and recalling words when reading. His mother has worked with him some in the past using Reading Reflex and will start working more with it now. They want to do more. I have looked at the websites for both Audiblox and Brainskills. Which is more effective? PACE is not an option as they live several hundred miles from a provider. Becoming a PACE provider is not an option either as they have 2 other very small children, one a nursing baby. Has anyone had good results with Brainskills?
Re: Brainskills vs. Audiblox
I have seen Brainskills (we ended up doing PACE) and have read a number of discussions about Audioblox. I think it depends on what the problem is. Audioblox doesn’t have an explicit auditory processing component while Brainskills does. For my son that would have been a big draw back. But I know, from posts, that other children with different problems have had really good results using Audioblox.
I agree with Carol that the parent needs to have a better sense of what the underlying deficits are before deciding.
Re: Brainskills vs. Audiblox
Bob, I would certainly recommend Audiblox. I don’t know anything about Brainskills, but Audiblox was the answer for my daughter’s problems. She was reading grade level when we started Audiblox -at the beginning of 5th grade, Sept. 2000. However, I knew that she was falling behind academically because of memory problems and also her language based learning disability. She’s a very smart girl too-academically nothing seemed to “stick” to her. They have a wonderful language component to the program which she is still doing and it has helped her receptive and espressive language A LOT! It took a while to get the results we wanted, but by January of 2001 even her principal commented to me on how well my daughter is doing in school. The teachers all agreed she was working grade level in all her subjects. In 4th grade that wasn’t the case. Now she’s in middle school in 6th grade. She is no longer identifed as LD but does have a Speech/Language IEP in place. She is receiving A’s and B’s in everything except math where she will be getting a C or C+. Does she have to work hard for these grades? Yes. Of course it does depend on what she is studying. We’re still doing Audiblox and will be for a few more months. I want to be sure she is solid in everything.
Regarding language and memory, I asked her a question this summer after we had watched a movie together. I asked her if she had a hard time following the story lines in movies a year ago. She said she did. She can follow the story line in a movie now and enjoy it. Obviously this is also happening in her reading and writing - I’ve seen it.
Good Luck whatever you choose!
Bob, I think you need to know more about what’s causing his difficulties with concentration and short-term memory. The best interventions are the ones which specifically target the underlying problem and work to correct that underlying problem. It would be a good idea to have the child tested, preferably by a knowledgeable school educational specialist, to see what is going on. (Cheaper if the school does it.) Then you can look for the best remediation.
Carol