Fast Forward Question, Beth in Flwhat do you thibnk?

We got gains in receptive language and memory from doing FFW. Everything went by him, before FFW. Now he eavesdrops with the best of them. He couldn’t do Earobics either until after FFW. If he can already do Earobics, I’d skip it personally. It is a demanding expensive program. You might look at Interactive Metronome though. We got many nice gains from it—depends on what the issues are. If you tell me your concerns in a bit more detail, maybe I could help.

Lips isn’t going very well. I am heartbroken. I am not sure what the problem is. At first it seemed that the tutor was just going too fast. I think that my son really doesn’t want to do it—he resents doing it while other kids play. He really feels cheated I think. He doesn’t seem to be focusing. We are going to try to give him a break in the middle of the hour for five minutes tomorrow. If it doesn’t go better, I think I am going to stop. I think we’re wasting our money.

I then am going to send him to a camp for LD children. They use Wilson which isn’t as good I don’t think. The ratio is 12-1 which isn’t like 1 on 1. But maybe being around others who have the same issues will be good for him.

Beth

Lips can be very hard for some kids (the ones that need it the most). My son was having melt downs, crying, etc. Finally, we decided to change tutors and continue with the Lips. Seems it was partly a personality conflict and he has been much happier with the new tutor. Don’t give up on the program, but a break or change in tutor may help.

Dear Beth,
I’m so sorry it’s not going well. I would have been heartbroken if it hadn’t workd out for Jack, but I have NO doubt that at least half of son’s success is to do with the tutour. They had a great relationship before she got LIPS training and he has complete trust in her. And then she is just one of those talented teachers. I’m icredibly lucky. It’s like having a loving grandma teaching. You’ve said that your OT or audiologist is getting LIPS training?? Can you talk to your son and strike a bargain. He can have this time off if he tries again with the other person he knows. Then I also know that Jack’s progress is because he’s doing LIPS 4 hours a day , 5 days a week and nothing else. His other friends are still in school until almost the end of July because the school year here is longer. He feels priviledged not slighted to be only doing this 4 hours and not a whole school day. It might be worth it to continue with your 5 yr old??? MY youngest only 4 but if I could figure out how to teach this or afford Jackie again…. But is he making greater progress than oldest ??? That might be part of resistance? And this is the long-haul so in another two years oldest may be ready to do this as hard as he’s done the others.
As for us-Jack is reading and retaining what seems an incredible amount of info to me, ( esp compared to nothing before) but i wonder about a double deficit. It’s really hard to tell at this stage but I would like to help to speed up his rapid naming. He’s very slow. I’ve checked into IM since I posted and it does seem to be more relevant than FF. He still can’t swim. Runs gawky. Has writing trouble. Backward letters and numbers. Is IM related to the beat count game on Earobics. That was the only one that Jack seemed to want to do and wasn’t bored by. We didn’t seem to get any gains from Earobics, but we did it for about 4 weeks before LIPS so it might have helped. Will do vision thing when we get back to states in fall too. Thanks for your concern. My heart goes out, but he’s worked so hard for you the last years.Maybe he does just need some boytime off. Best wishes to you and son.

Beth, I’ve heard VERY good things about Wilson - in fact, my evaluator recommends it over LIPS for older kids (Im now sure what the age difference/level is). My daughter started at just turning 7 with LIPS. My evaluator suggested Wilson for my friend’s 15 year old.

Beth,
Don’t give up on lips. It is the FASTEST ,most effective program I have ever encountered. The resource teacher at his schools used Slingerland/wilson based programs and it failed miserably. He learned all the rules and could not apply them. Lips also improved his speech articulation. Lips mastery takes about 120 hours. Wilson takes 3 years. I think you should try it with another tutuor.
My son took lips at a clinic where he rotated tutors every hour. They worked for 55 minutes with a 5 minute break. Each session was worth 100 points. When he completed 1000 points he could choose a prize. His favorite was pokemon cards. He was age 9-10 when he went thru the training.
Don’t give up lips, just give up the tutor!

Well, I spoke to the therapist he has worked with for the past year and a half. She said LIPS wasn’t designed for kids with his set of problems and with an inflexible teacher, she could see how it could be a disaster. His problems are more motor based and perhaps the motor component of LIPS is not as helpful to him as it is to other kids. He didn’t seem to rely on the feelings in his mouth to remember.

We have passed on the tutor for now. I will revisit the issue in fall, if other interventions don’t put the reading together by then. The audiologist he did IM with is being trained this summer. There really isn’t any other option until then.

My son could do the Earobic exercise with the drum just fine but had low beginning scores with IM. I don’t think they are related.

Beth

We decided to stop the tutoring because it clearly wasn’t effective. The camp wasn’t going to work very easily either—the one closest to us was full and as my mother pointed out, our son has never learned anything in a group. So I was almost going to be using it as a very expensive punishment. After speaking to the two audiologists who have worked with him closely, I felt like at least a good part of the problem was a match between him and the tutor. We finally decided to let him go to the camp we had originally planned. He has some social issues as well and we lack neighborhood kids so we may just have to focus on that for now.

We are doing other therapy (Neuronet) and he has agreed to do some additional exercises instead of the LIPS tutoring. A therapist he has worked successfully with in the past is getting trained in LIPS this summer so we have that as an option this fall.

It is all disapointing because, as usual, I thought I had everything under control for the summer. I keep wanting to take giant steps and he is taking baby steps.

Beth

You know when we think we’ve got it all planned out and it gets blown apart sometimes it’s for the best- though we can’t see it at the time. From what you’ve described of him your son is a trueblue ,hi-integrity, type A personality. He’s climbed the highest mountains for you, swam the deepest seas - in the ld sense.He’s learned to focus on tasks that are herculean for him and persevere. He’s learning there are times that you say this isn’t working and let it go and go backto the drawing board and start again. I would say these are skills and abilities that mark successful people. If LIPS wasn’t right for him at this time then why waste time on it. Let him get on with what works for him.

I needed that. He is coming into his own. I saw a post on Callagraphics—it is a program that you do drawing to music that is supposed to feed into handwriting. My son’s younger brother has some handwriting issues too so I thought it might be easy and fun and help both of them. My LD son told me that “I will learn to type or learn to write but not both.” I had to laugh. He is learning to type this summer.

Beth

Hi Beth,
My son is 10 and has alot of learning disabilities. He is apraxic, poor fine and gross motor sckills, poor motor planning. problems with visual perception and problems with attention athough he is no hyperactive. He also has problems with sequencing. This program sounds very promising but I;m leary because we did fast forward 2 summers ago and I saw little to no gains in any area although I don;t regret doing it because then I would of never known if it could of helped. Interactive metronome therapy has been around how long? How long does it take to administer the program and how much time do they do it each day. Is ist 5 days a week, 3days or what? Now for the money question. How much does this cost? Has anyone gotten insurance or their school district to pay for it? Any other info you have on this would be appreciated. Thanks.
Karen