To gk--AP exercises

Beth,

Thanks for the helpful hints. And you’re right, we haven’t done Balametrics so I don’t know what the balancing board is. Can you describe it? We will try anything. Does this help in concentration?

We did get some helpful hints for doing the AIC exercises. We are still on level 4 with the metronome (he can almost do this!), but we are going on to AP 5, 6 and 7, and having my son read the words down two columns, but with a stopwatch. I think this should help him before we start the metronome on those pages.

gk

gk,

The balance board is a board with rounded legs underneath that don’t reach to the end of the board so you can’t just stand there but rather have to balance. The nearest thing I can think that you can rig up would be a piece of wood sitting on something. You would then have your son stand on it. You wouldn’t want it to be too hard so the thing supporting the wood would need to be fairly wide. You might look on the Balametrics (I hope I have the spelling right) and see if they have a picture.

I really don’t know why it works. Balancing is part of the vestibular system which is connected to auditory processing. There was a video that came with my board but I haven’t watched it. I tried it with some other exercises after Mary MN said that someone she knew was getting faster results with PACE using it. I initially used it with the ball toss.

It sounds like you are getting there. This is just slow with a kid with severe AP problems. My son passed AIC 5 today. Yeah.
We are still on level 3 with the writing though. And like your son, we now are on 13 and 14 on segmenting, blending, and switching vowel sounds. These just must be easier skills. My son read “skunk” as skunk without even segmenting yesterday while reading. I know he had never seen the word and I know he could never have done that before PACE.

I think using a stop watch is a good idea. As I said, we don’t add the metronome until he is pretty fast and accurate.

Beth

Thanks for this great idea. I will try to rig something up for him to practice these lessons on.

Aren’t you glad for these small accomplishments (like reading “skunk”)? I get so thrilled when my son does something that shows that he learned. I must admit that he has alot more patience (than me) with these exercises and goes into them very willingly, even though he knows that he can’t do them very well yet.

gk

You may not get the same results if you use something other than the Balametrics board. One of the things that makes it different from other boards is that it is marked from the center out. The developer stresses the importance of placing the feet so that they are equally distant from the center. This ensures that the child is actually balancing symmetrically, and not just compensating for poor balance by shifting weight to one side or the other. If you do rig up something, be sure to mark it so both sides of the body have to work equally to maintain balance.

Mary

My son does not have the patience yours does but he does them anyway because I make him!!!

I spoke to the audiologist who we are seeing for Neuronet about why the balance board helped with auditory processing—that is where we got the balance board from. Basically, she told me that the vestibular system is the only “obligatory” motor sensory system—meaning that you automatically—not consciously— try to stay in balance. If you also do AP work, the act of balancing forcesthe two sides of the brain to work together better. The idea would be that your brain learns to process better and then you don’t need to be on the board to do as well. It is like balancing heightens your ability to learn.

Beth