Hi Karen et al,
I saw your posts back a bit and thought I might let you know how it is going so far with my son–INCREDIBLY FRUSTRATING. I knew it would be difficult for him, but, after getting Beth’s feedback, I thought he would progress through the program at a faster rate. That being said, he has finally, today, at session 12, gotten it for 2 straight minutes. It may not sound like much, but his time was down to 21 milliseconds and he felt great afterwards.We will keep it up until his time is consistent and hopefully below 20 ms. He actually started the program pretty low—around 60 or 70 ms, but is having a hard time breaking 30.
If your son’s motor and processing problems are anything like my son’s (keeping movements consistent and knowing what his body is doing) than I suggest you find a very patient therapist and expect to be there longer than 3 weeks. The more I watch him, the more I like the program because he is forced to self correct in an incredibly short amount of time-something he finds incredibly difficult. My husband made a good comment —“if it was easy, it probably wouldn’t help.” I think one of sock’s sons just flew threw the program and the other had to go for about 27 sessions. It would be very interesting to me to learn which son gained more from the program. Socks?
I do not expect to see anything significant until school starts. But, what I have seen is quicker with math facts (nothing earth shattering), his expressive language tutor says he is speeding up in generating and expressing his ideas (but he has also gotten to know her over the past few weeks and likes her very much–so it may just be that he is not as afraid of making mistakes), he can throw and catch his been bags from further distances, and he caught the car keys I threw—3 times.
IM is not a magic cure–and although I said that going in, I think I sort of hoped it would be. I think he will get out of it something proportional to what he puts in. But I am feeling very bad today about making him spend his summer this way. :(
In the end, I hope we will both find it was worth it.
By the way, I am doing the program—have 3 sessions left and I am down to 12 ms:))) I can only say that I am far more aware of what my body is doing in tennis and can make corrections quickly. I am also driving within the speed limit!!!!!
Well—that’s all for now.
Margo
Re: IM--Karen
Hey Margo - I’ve been thinking of you! I wasn’t sure if you were reachable by Email while you are in town.
That’s exciting, realistic, information about IM. Thanks for sharing it. We’ve decided to do it starting on Monday. My son tested as a great candidate (no surprise). He is going to need “pretraining” before starting the program so we are looking at about 25 sessions in all. His score was 185, but what got the therapist excited was that during one test he got into the zone and she thinks he’ll respond well. Who knows.
Karen
Re: IM--Karen
I think that your and my experience show how unpredictable these programs can be. My son started at over 200 but didn’t have any trouble breaking through the 30 ms barrier. The therapist actually thought he’d stall there. I do think a lot of it was the therapy we’d already done but I also think it is hard to know.
Just to encourage you, I am continuing to see things I can only attribute to IM. I see my son singing, imitating voices—pretending to be the dog and then himself. I would never think of these as IM type gains except the therapist had told me about similar things with other kids.
Also, my son had a dreadful time with Fast Forward—a lot like your son and IM. We broke through the barriers (more time than usual) and have seen long lasting results. In my view, it was an even more unpleasant therapy (more time consuming if nothing else), but worth it in the end. Hopefully, both you and your son will feel that way about IM eventually.
Beth
Re: IM--Karen
Beth,
You are so right!!! All of our children are incredibly unique–
Some of my son’s best qualities are due to his difficulties—he is empathetic, he can be incredibly profound and deep, he has an incredible code of honor, morality and loyalty–
Some other little bits regarding self organization occurred today—so we are in this until it is over!
Hope everyone is having a great summer.
Ciao for now,
Margo
Thanks for the info. How long does he work on the program each day and how many times a week does he do it? Does insurance pay? HA! You never know. I am wondering if I can get my school district to pay for it. What is the approximate cost? I’m sure it is a fortune. We did Fast Forward a few summers ago and unfortunately I really saw no obvious differences after we finished it. My son had a very hard time completeing a lot of the games and after 8 weeks he was completely burned out so some of it never got finished. I still am glad I did it because you never know which kid a program will help and it might be one of ours! Any more info would be appreciated.
Karen