4 weeks of LindamoodBell

What does it cost and does it vary by center?

I wouldn’t be surprised if it varied by center. I live in New York city and all of our tutors and psychologists seem to charge more than in other places. The price also varies based on how much services you purchase.

I did not see any benefits from 5 weeks of clinic-based Lindamood Bell at $6000 at the Washington D.C. clinic, even though a rather longer period of home-based Lindamood Bell worked pretty well at getting down basic visualization. Try getting the materials from Gandar Publishing at the www.lblp.com website and doing it yourself. This is not rocket science, and therapists vary considerably in their abilities to pull off this program.

Is that the amount of time they recommended?

Some kids take off and fly after four weeks of good reading instruction; others take a full year of patience as you drag them through it kicking and screaming. How impervious is your child to learning sounds and symbols? If you simply haven’t had very good teaching, than this could work well. If your child is one of the ones who is a brick wall, then take your time and go more slowly.

We went to the Lindamood Bell clinic this summer. They recommended 8-12 weeks for my 10 year old son. We did 7-1/2 and had great success.

I think you should talk to the director of the clinic. If you’ve had your child tested there, they should be able to tell you in what areas remediation should take place. I know they concentrate first on the greatest areas of weakness, and for us it was symbol imagery. They did LIPs and Seeing Stars at the same time. I was told that it would be best to do at least 3 weeks for the therapy to make a difference.

I really found the Lindamood Bell clinic to be very professional and on top of things. It was a great experience. I think the hourly tutoring rate is the same in all of the clinics.

Four summers ago, my child went to D.C. Lindamood/Bell clinic for LIPS/Seeing Stars for 4 hours a day for four weeks-made tremendous strides in reading, the most progress we’ve ever seen.

After this much intensive tutoring, how could anyone not make progress? I can’t imagine my son would agree to this much tutoring; how do kids fit in school, and the rest of their lives?

The center hasn’t tested him yet, but of course they would prefer we do more like 8-10 weeks. But we just don’t have that kind of time until the summer. He gets 2 weeks off in Dec., and then would continue for the first 2 weeks of school. He’d probably continue to go to school in the AM, and then LMB in the afternoon. Honestly, its not that much more work than what he does now which is a full day of school followed by therapy/tutoring 3 days a week. So for those 2 weeks of school he’d have a slightly more difficult schedule. Plus I plan to get his teacher to agree to not having him doing homework during this period. So his work hours would be similar to what he does now.

This is a last ditch attempt to close the gap on his reading enough so he can stay at his present regular school. We are looking to pull him out and place him at a special private school next fall, but we don’t know if he’ll get in yet.

To answer Victoria’s post - I think he’s had good teaching, but not nearly enough of it. He’s gotten some support at school and we hired a tutor last spring. He’s a slow processor, and really needs alot of repetition. He makes progress, but slowly.

This could maybe jumpstart him - or not be enough time for it to soak in. Can’t decide ………

Since the LMB approach ultimately did work for your child, why do you think the 5 weeks didn’ t make a difference? Not spread out enough over a long enough period of time to let it assimilate? Or could it have laid a foundation for the later work?

I realize these are hard questions to answer and everyone learns differently …

Karen, I don’t have all the information on your child, however you state he is a slow processor. If this is the primary issue, there are other avenues you can investigate. If he also has phonological issues, then LiPs might be wonderful. I teach some students who are quite capable of figuring out words, who know the sounds and can correctly sequence the sounds…….. if you have all day. If he is in this category, Seeing Stars might be a good program to try. Like Shirin said, you can purchase the book yourself and go through the exercises at home.

I suggest you have them evaluate your child and see what they recommend. Do realize that they are always, first and foremost in the business of making money.

Careful that you give your current intervention plan enough time to see how it will work for you—unless you know now that it isn’t working.

I don’t remember all your details, however, I didn’t feel LiPS was needed. Lots of LmB folks feel that one must travel back to conception (e.g., discovering sound feelings). That just isn’t so if the student has a firm connection of sound/symbol.

Our plan , which is typical for kids at his school with these issues, is to hire a good tutor 2X /week to supplement the little bit they do at school. We did that last March. So he did a couple of months with her, did very little over the summer, and resumed with a new tutor in sept. Its a slow and steady wins the race approach. (I have been reading up on PG as well, but have been finding it difficult to find the time to do it with him. He’s a very compliant kid, but he works much much better with people who aren’t Mom.Its very loaded between us, and I don’t really want my whole relationship with him to be about his reading. )

I would let the LMB folks evaluate him in early December so there will be more time to see if what we are doing is working. I suspect we’ll continue to see slow and steady progress - what we are hoping for this year is a break thru. It probably won’t happen, but we want to feel like we’ve tried every reasonable thing to help him before taking him out of the mainstream - as decision that will be made in March. Since he’s in private school already if we give up his spot at the current school its gone. Its not like we can decide over the summer. Wish I had a crystal ball!

My son has taken almost 4 years to read at grade level, and still processes slowly, yet can keep up with home help and support in reg. ed. 6th grade; I think for him an intensive approach would have shut him down entirely…Reading tutoring is such an incremental process one week at a time, I don’t think it can be rushed. And my son is one for whom people might have tended to rec. an intensive reading program …he’s of superior intelligence, without behavioral problems, but it would have turned him off entirely. All we care about is that he keeps making slow steady progress in reading…and his spelling we realize may never improve much.

Interesting. My son also is also very intelligent, and not a behavior problem - which of course as you point out is why people think intensive remediation might work. Its good to know you got him to grade level, and can keep him there with reasonable support. We hope to be there one day. The only urgency for us is that once we take him out of his present school there really isn’t any going back. If they offered special ed. there then we’d be all set , but they don’t. (Its a selective college prep. K-12) Its probably in his best interest to leave, but he’ll be so sad, and it will seriously disrupt our family, so we want to leave no stone unturned before we pull the plug. Thanks for sharing your success story.

Our son got tutoring outside of school; no, he doesn’t function with the “top achievers”, but so what? We only have one middle school, so we have no school choices…but my point was that it takes a LONG time to see steady progress, even with bright kids

Usually, the 4 hour/day tutoring is done over the summer, or during break.

I can’t imagine doing this tutoring during the school year. I would pull my son entirely out of school, because it is intense one on one therapy. And more important than school — this is language therapy.

The tutors at Lindamood are very successful at working with the student because they are incredibly positive, teach in a multisensory way, and change activities every 5 minutes to keep the students interest. They also change tutors every 50 minutes.

I was amazed at how well my son responded. Finally, no tears, but came home smiling. His self esteem soared.

In the end, he went up 5 grade levels in decoding, 2 grade levels in reading and his processing speed went up — lindamood is studying the effect of their tutoring on processing speed.

The list is too lengthy and my computer too slow to read this whole thread, but, let me share my story.

My son, who in the 4th grade was suffering terribly, was pulled ut of reg. ed, for “resource room” work. The teacher (good school district) was clueless.and we wasted a lot - a lot - of time until he was practically crawling out of school everyday. (Included moving to another, supposedly better, school district. RR teacher there, clueless as well. Didn’t even realize he was dyslexic after 6 months of “teaching” him, not that she would have known what to do anyway….) Anyway, after much more agony, when he was in January of 6th grade, I decided to homeschool him primarily in intensive language which included heavy LindamoodBell. (Prior he had done FastForWord which helped a lot.)

He was so burned out by the time I pulled him out of school, we could only work 90 minutes a day. He had other projects and books on tape to fill in. Slowly, with the help of a dyslexia tutor, we started making progress and doing the daily drills, concentrating on the language integration…in science and geography and worked on math and symbols and meanings. He read about 60 books on tape over the next 6-8 months. Because we were new to town and rural, I knew that he needed to go back to school because he needed social interaction. After a rough 7th grade where we were working out the details of his IEP, he has adjusted well. He is reading and is literate. He has substantial accomodations and modifications in the regular ed classroom and made the honor roll last quarter 9th grade. Now in tenth, recent midterm grades show one a and all b’s. I think he has made significant progress and most of all, is literate in reading and somewhat in writing…not proficient, but able.

What happened? FastForWord, LindamoodBell and development.

How long did your son do LMB? And it was done in an intensive way?

We did 4 hours a day for 7-1/2 weeks. LMB had recommended 8-12 weeks.

I sat in on a few of his sessions — it was one-on-one intensive.

He was very tired for the first few weeks and then he was fine. But during this time, the only thing we did was the tutoring — no school or homework. I didn’t even ask that he read during the evenings, until his symbol imagery was developed. I felt he had worked hard enough during the day.

We did Lindamood LiPS at an LD clinic twice a week for six months. I saw progress, but felt that the rest of his day at public school was a waste. I wanted LiPS during his day. I waited until they trained teachers, but unfortunately, they did not have the skill or support to deliver a meaningful program. Hired an advocate and the district paid for the clinic every morning for 4 hours (part Fast ForWord and part LiPS). He made good progress on the intensive, but then the district pulled the financial plug. Back to the old style of education he lost ground. I believed that my son needed reading instruction that was intensive and during his school day. He could not do the hardest work of his day after a full day at school. I also felt he needed to learn interesting things, so he was mainstreamed into regular social studies, science and English. He has benefited intellectually from books on tape and educational TV. What he thinks and understands are so far from how he reads and writes I don’t know how to fill the gap. He wrote (dictated) a novel this summer. Bless him, though, he still tries.

Angela,
How old is your son now, and how old was he when you started his remediation? Just curious. My son also has always been interested in, and understood things beyond his ability to read. Of course when he was 4 we didn’t see that as a problem. Now that he’s 8 it is, and between school, therapy etc. its hard to find the time to just read to him the stuff he really loves. But we try every night to read good age appropriate literature to him.

Karen N wrote:
>
> My son also has always been
> interested in, and understood things beyond his ability to
> read. Of course when he was 4 we didn’t see that as a
> problem. Now that he’s 8 it is, and between school, therapy
> etc. its hard to find the time to just read to him the stuff
> he really loves. But we try every night to read good age
> appropriate literature to him.

Karen, this sounds like my son, so let me tell you what happen to him later (he is 10.5 now). Once the gap between him and peers grew (in terms of academic performance, poor reading skills leading to poorer vocabluary and eventaully poor social interactions because of poor school performance) he did not even like us to read him books. He became extremaly frustrated and eventually depressed. This all led to a really complicated scenario…
If I knew what I know now, I would have sent him to LMB clinic for a boost in his decoding skills and keep the tutoring later. For my son, 30 sessions with a good OG tutor over 6 weeks in summer and a lot of reading in the evenings helped a lot, but it was all at least a year or two years too late…

So how is he doing now? He’s only 10.5, so there still has to be time to make a positive change in his life… how did you deal with the depression? I hope you don’t mind these follow up questions, but we are all facing these issues. Thanks.

I am very curious about this because I really think my son needs Lindamood. The nearest clinic is one hour away and is just not feasible for us to do.

I want to get it into the school to be used during his self-contained language arts block. Right now they do a little bit of this and a little bit of that. We visited the clinic this summer and I really think their programs address all of his needs.

First, how did you get it in the school? I would be interested in hearing how you got this done.

Second, how and why did they pull the plug on it?

When you say he went up 5 grade levels in deconding and 2 grade levels in reading, was that from LMB post testing or was this what you saw when he went back to school? Did you see any problems with his reading when he went from one on one tutoring and doing great, to transitioning into a classroom reading class? Was his ability to read required reading and complete review questions from his textbooks viewed as successful?

Sorry for all the questions. I have considered contacting an LMB clinic in our area. One of my children may benefit from this but in the past I have seen success while it is in a one on one situation only to be disappointed when the success is not carried over and achieved in the classroom.

Karen N wrote:
>
> So how is he doing now? He’s only 10.5, so there still has to
> be time to make a positive change in his life…

A long story, but finally we managed to send him to private school for LD (with an agreement and money from his school district). A big relief, but it is not a piece of cake- 35 miles ride each way, he leaves home 6.45 am and comes back at 5 pm, BUT… He does his homework without much help from us - there are parts of HW where we need to listen (for his decoding) or time him (for his fluencies), but other than that we just need to sign for what part of WH did he do. In terms of progress, it is too early to say, but we have a joyful boy back at home - a huge change from any other school year. We see how he will do in a long run. But, he now wants me to read him books… which he did not want for the last two years.

There are disadvantages to a new placement - no art, no music no science, but we realized that there is no perfect placement for him nearby us, so we chose what we thought would be the best. There is a lot of language arts to boost up his verbal skills in oral and written expressions. His decoding is OK, but reading is difficult and takes a lot of his mental energy at the expense of comprehension. The added difficulty is the fact that he is bilingual- we are foreign- and this certainly adds stress since he is developing two languages (we gave up on teaching him reading and writing in the second language, but he learns and uses the second language at home). And last, but not least, THERE IS A LOT OF STRUCTURE in his new school. High expectations, but clearly defined and executed (in terms of both academic performance and behaviour- including paying attention).

> how did you
> deal with the depression? I hope you don’t mind these follow
> up questions, but we are all facing these issues. Thanks.

We had no clue that the problems we saw at home were signs of depression (he hardly talked about school and rarely complained)- it was brought up by the psychologist who did his neuropsychological eval. And as he phrased it “he is a deeply saddened boy”. The official diagnosis (as far as I remember) was- adjustment disorder with depressive mood. At that time we were successful in getting him a lot of help already, privately and in school, and he was on the “uphill path” because of the help he received. We were also VERY LUCKY that our son got a teacher whom he absolutely adored (and the teacher liked him a lot as well - that helped tremendously in surviving 4th grade).

After the eval., we started individual therapy for him (as recommended) and although he got a lot of services at school and we felt his 4th grade was a good school year, we heard from the therapist he still would not talk about school AT ALL (after seeing the therapist every week for a few months already- and he really likes his therapist). The therapist said that in one session he mentioned that there is no school thsi week because it was a vacation week and the fact that he just mentioned school was enough for our son to shut down completely and hardly talk to the therapist during that session.
The psychologist who did the neuropsychological eval. was also helpful in making the school aware that our son is this doubly exceptional child, which combined with his personality (for example his perfectionism) makes the situation very challenging for him to deal with.
We knew, we did not have the resources to send him to LMB during the school year (neither financially- we in CT- believe me it is not a much less exp. than NYC and 50 miles driving each way toward NYC virtually impossible to schedule with two working parents). Secondly, we felt improving his reading skills will not solve all his problems (at that time)- the writing was so bad (it still is) and the main problem: the open classroom setting in his regional school (75 children- 3 classes in one room with partitions) was a disaster for our son in general. Hence, we knew we had to change school and if so, we knew we need to change for something that could provide the services he needs and provide most of them. I think being among all LD children is so helpful for him- he did not want to go to this school at all (and he still complains sometimes), but it is the first time in his school career he is talking about school!!!

I think, the overall impact of LD varies from child to child and one has to look at the “big picture”. For that a professional opinion was helpful, because I brought up many times my son’s emotional status to school attention, but only when we had the therapist talking to school it made a difference (at school he was just a shy boy). It helped us also, because we tend to blame ourselves (maybe we are bad parents and this is why this boy is such a problem at home) and only after the therapist expressed his opinion it helped us to assess the situation properly. It is really hard to raise a frustrated child, especially when we know that the source of frustration will be there for while and most likely (to some extend) for his whole life. So even when we provide remediation it is a lengthy process and he needs to learn to deal with his differences, for now and for later. I think this was the very much missing piece that was not really addressed for a long time for our son and caused a lot of damage, which hopefully is being repaired now.

Our son is now 15 and in 10th grade. Since I am a special ed teacher I knew we needed to start early. He was so bright and verbal as a little boy, but kindergarten was stressful. Psych testing revealed gifted intellect and attention delays. So we went to a child psychiatrist and put him on dexidrine for Attention Deficit. Changed schools to one less rigid, put him in special ed and took a wait and see approach. Middle of second grade he still was not reading and the instruction was whole language - lots of word lists from literature. Sadly, my special ed training was to slow down, do it again and be nice. I had no training in teaching decoding. The medication depressed him terribly so, we stopped it. Third grade we bought Hooked on Phonics and tried to coordinate school and home. I guess it was 3rd grade that we found an LD clinic and began Lindamood after school twice a week. I could see it helping, but then the school was doing nothing the same. I insisted that he have Lindamood during the day, so they bussed him to another elementary school where a teacher was doing Lindamood, but by the time he was transported, etc., etc. it was still not enough. Why can’t his own school provide? Well, now we waited for his teacher to get training and then start using it. But, she didn’t really understand and the district provided no support. 4th grade we wanted an intensive at the LD clinic, and so began the battle, the ugly IEP meetings, the private testing, the stall and delay. Each month my son is growing and he still can’t read. We went to universities and optomotrists and therapists. Our son became depressed and explosive. We found a wonderful counselor that saw our son every other week. We mainstreamed him into regular classes where he could learn interesting things. Lindamood was the best. He just didn’t have enough consistant, intensive instruction to make it stick. I knew our high school offered nothing and they couldn’t even assure me he would graduate. Time to go and take care of my son. We moved so he could go to a private LD high school. He is getting reading instruction and I did Lindamood myself with him this summer. Mostly, the school is accepting and interesting. They will help him go to college. I sit with him every night for homework and we are working on him being more independent. Went to the library and got 4 audio books that he enjoys. His favorite audio book is “The Power of Positive Thinking”. He took a class in how to be a stand-up comedian and like I said earlier wrote (dictated) his first novel. I’m sorry this is so long, it has been a long road. Trust your gut, take care of your kid. Ours may not read too well, but he’s not going to let that stop him.

Hi Karen,
I think it might be worth trying. It seems to me that an intensive approach should make a difference. But, just how much of a difference it will make is impossible to know. You won’t know unless you do it.

And if it’s not you providing the intensive rememdiation, then it should be someone else.

As far as any gains “sticking,” it seems to me you’d have a more a chance of this because you plan to continue afterschool tutoring.

Good luck with your decision! :-)

Karen,

My sons were fortunate to have a resource specialist at school that was trained in LB. It was the answer for my older son. Since you have some time here before Dec. could you make an effort to do the PG to progress in the area of the test he did poorly. Maybe getting an agreement with school to cut homework or could the tutor do PG with him. I think you said the the tutor was a Psych. Could the tutor addminister the LACT (the LB test) to see where he stands in that area. The test is easy to administer and phonemic aswareness is entact when a child gets 100% on both parts. Also, it would be a good idea to administer one of the reading tests before doing LB to see his current level since you have been doing intervention.

Helen

Part of going to an LMB center is their testing. Then they tailor the program, so if we (meaning me and his tutor) are successful at improving his phonemic awareness I assume they’ll pick up where ever we’ve left off. I think he’d really benefit from seeing stars so I’d like to move along the phonemic piece as much as possible. I also just think that its a way to intensive remediation because they do rotate the teachers - no regular mom or tutor could possibly do that much work in one day. And the more the better with him. That’s our working hypothesis anyway.

Your son will be fine thanks to you. Its not easy is it?

Hi again,
Your story sounds very similar to the path we are on - one that I suspect will end up at a private LD school if we get lucky. We are looking at schools outside of NYC, in westchester and Ct, so I’m curious which one you ended up at. Email me privately if you don’t wish to broadcast over the internet, but are willing to share info. If you looked at schools we are considering I’d love your feedback.

BTW , we spend a lot of time in CT, my folks live in westport. I know its no picnic financially.( I thought there was a lmb clinic in stamford, but perhaps that’s not close to you either.)

This is what I have wondered. Why so many hours? I have remediated many students in a very short amount of time compared to LMB. These students were told by LMB that it would take 200+ hours and I did it in less than 10. They really didn’t have enough hours in the week to do LMB.

Hi Karen, Why don’t you hire a PG therapist to remediate your son. Really, it shouldn’t take that long. Call me, I think that you have my number.

The testing was the LMB post test.

He was decoding and reading at a 1st grade level, and at post testing, reading at a 3rd grade level and decoding at a 6th grade level.

My son was diagnosed with double-deficit dyslexia with rapid naming problems. He is a severe dyslexic. I was turned down by a dyslexic school last spring. It was a school that takes a student for 2 to 3 years and transitions them back into a regular classroom setting. That’s when I decided on the LMB clinic. And they were the only ones to identify the weak symbol imagery.

The fact that he can sound out any word we put in front of him is to me, a miracle. It has helped in the classroom. For the first time, he can read the word problems on the math test. He still needs extra time, but he doesn’t have to sit there with a classroom aide.

I think the reading will take time. He’s missed out on years of spelling tests and reading assignments. I noticed that he is writing stories for the first time (he could only write a few sentences before). He fills up entire pages with writing. He spells phonetically. His sight word base now has to develop. But that ability to write has really helped him.

I can’t say that I’m disappointed. LMB has taught him to swim when before he was drowning. Now he needs practice.

When kids learn to decode in K-2, they begin to practice those skills and spend the next two years developing speed and accuracy (fluency). That is five years of total practice. Yet, we expect our dyslexic kids to learn to decode and build fluency in a few weeks or months. The key to it is the right intervention and then lots of practice, practice, practice (for years) while being accommodated to stay up w/the curriculum at school. My 18 year old son is just now coming into his own as a reader. We didn’t get started early enough, granted, but always remember:

Success is a journey, not a destination.

I really believe that.

Excellent point. (1) It takes time and hard work. (2) Practice makes perfect (3) It’s *never* too late.

anecdotal:
My daughter’s boyfriend speaks two different non-European languages at home. He is also hyperactive but medications make things worse. He moved to the US at age 7 but there was a year of disruption before he got back into school. He learned English from age 8 to 9. As is typical of ESL classes, there was little focused reading instruction, just hoping that the kids would catch up and shoving them into age level grading as soon as they can speak OK. He taught himself to read, more or less, after age 9, and developed as a highly gifted student in sciences but very far behind his real ability in reading and writing.
As he entered university as a physics major at age 18, there was a real question whether he could get through the required English composition class. He stalled out on writing his first assignment. I sat down at the laptop and told him to start talking, and I typed everything he said. Voila, a quite acceptable beginning biographical essay (at which time I learned for the first time all the background above). After this kick-start, he started doing his brainstorming by himself. [the type and keep talking is a good technique which I recommend to people whose kids are blocked at a sheet of white paper.]
Then he spent the last two years, from age 18 to 20, with my darling daughter who lives immersed in books. They have a mutual interest in fantasy and science fiction, and she introduced him to the literary form in addition to the film form. Last time I visited, *he* gave me a list of books by their new favourite fantasy author whose works — all twenty books and counting, four hundred pages a shot, full of phonetic made-up fantasy vocabulary — the two of them are reading through in order. I didn’t say anything, but this is a pretty amazing change for a young man who first read the Boxcar Children at age 10 and who was likely to flunk out of freshman English! Never too late, and a little motivation plus skill help works wonders.

That’s wonderful to hear about your son’s progress. Since my son only has (I guess it would be called…) single-deficit dyslexia (RAN problems) I can only imagine how much more difficult it was to try and remediate your son’s reading…and to be turned down by that school. That had to be frustrating!

But then, in the long run, everything worked out because your son sounds like he’s on his way to becoming an accomplished reader! :-)

It’s nice to know that if all else fails there are good programs out there (like LMB) that may be able to make the difference when other choises have failed or are not available.

I am so glad that you brought this up. This is what I tell people all the time, particularly those who want to hop from one program to another without giving the child time to practice. Great point, I just hope people will listen.

Thanks so much for your response! My child has auditory processing, visual processing and is dyslexic along with short term memory problems. We have tried tutoring with O-G for two years and he is still not hearing vowels. I thought LIPS and Seeing Star would be beneficial for him .

My son heard sounds much better after Fast Forward. He tested normal on decoding after doing it in auditory processing tests. Now he still had other auditory processing issues so it wasn’t a cure all. He also had receptive language issues which FFW resolved. He now tests above average.

Beth

I think the major problem was the setup; it was conducted in the summer in half-walled booths, by people who had gotten their training to do this 3 months earlier. (She did have some trouble with distractability at that time.) However, this is standard fare for a major center in summer.