info on PACE

I did PACE with my son after second grade. He was 8 years old. I did it after much thought and reading about really good results on this board. However, it was not a good use of our time and money. Let me explain.

PACE is a cognitive development program. It has some sensory motor components but that is not its focus. I was told by the training center I went to (in Sarasota) that it doesn’t work well with kids with sensory integration issues. Basically, I thought my son’s issues were resolved more than they were. I wasn’t the only one fooled—his Neuronet therapist (somewhat like OT) thought he could handle it too. PACE mainly showed us the depth of his sensory problems. (BTW, he did not score that badly on their pretest so this is not measure of difficulty. However, he only improved in one area in post test.)

I think it is a good program, if the child can do it. My son topped out pretty early and for 6 weeks we saw few gains. It was discouraging and my son refers to it as “the worse thing I ever made him do.” Now, I don’t agree—we did Fast Forward after first grade and it was much worse. The thing is he was successful eventually at it and was not with PACE.

We should have stopped, I think in retrospect. Now I stop whatever therapy I am doing with him if we don’t see improvements in two weeks and try a different approach. But then, I was operating under the model that got us through Fast Forward—try and try again. It had taken us 4 months as opposed to the standard 8 weeks to get through Fast Forward but we did. I thought perserverance would get you everywhere.

A couple issues—I did the training and I was inexperienced. I found that the different levels jumped a lot in difficulty and that they needed to be modified. A more experienced person could have done this better than I. However, I did talk to the center and their ideas did not help us get through the program. My son was basically incapable of doing this.

Second, we should have done The Listening Program first. My son has auditory processing issues (and we had done Fast Forward) but we just couldn’t get through the AP part of the program despite 4 months of trying. We did the Listening Program (after DEA reported good results with PACE and had done Tomatis before hand) and my son was able to get through levels in two days that he couldn’t in two months of work. Unfort. we were very burned out by that point and didn’t persist.

Third, we should have done Interactive Metronome first. It is a much more sensory based program and we saw great results from it. My son has motor based problems that really were too severe for PACE.

Fourth, the program starts at a six year old level and goes up. I think you get more bang for your buck if the child is at least 10. Part of our difficulty was that he couldn’t get to age level and there wasn’t that many levels before age level.

Two years later and lots more therapy later, my son might benefit from PACE but I don’t know if I could ever get him to do it again.

Beth

Hmmmm, well it does sound like our situations may be different. My dd has no sensory issues that I am aware of. She is not hyperactive, or overly sensitive to anything that I can think of. As far as motor issues she is very competent in that area also. Both fine motor skills ( an accomplished artist, beautiful penmanship….just can’t spell so rarely uses her gorgeous penmanship) and large motor skills (an amazing athlete.)

I just don’t know. There is only so much money and I don’t want to make a mistake because once its gone its gone.

Can you tell me more about Interactive Meronome? My dd has gone through the Linda Mood Bell Lips program and is now going through the Seeing Stars program. She had begun several other programs prior to the LMB involvement. There has been some progress but she is far from fluent or being able to read independently.

She is 10 and would be seeing a provider. Did you mean that you did the PACE training or the FF training and then did it with your son?

Thanks for your input.
Annette

I did both PACE and FFW with my son as the provider. It was more convenient and cheaper.

My son is also severely dsylexic, but the similarities may end there. Does your child have auditory processing problems? How about visual processing? PACE addresses both but, in my experience, there must be a pretty good basis there already.

IM doesn’t sound appropriate for your daughter. It addresses attention and seems to help kids who have motor based issues and sequencing problems the most.

I’d still recommend TLP first—I have read reports from providers here who say they do it with all their clients before PACE because it makes progress faster.

Have you done the pretest with PACE? That can give you some idea of where your daughter is at with the skills they address.

Another much cheaper alternative is Audiblox. It doesn’t address the auditory processing like PACE does though. Seems to help kids with visually based problems the most.

As I said, I did PACE because of good reports I’d heard from other parents. I am sure some of those will reply as well.

Beth

Check out www.learningrx.com

Hi Annette,

Everyone on this board certainly understands your concerns about the financial, emotional and time drain and wanting to use these resources wisely. We’re all there with you!

Like Beth, I was the provider and did both FFW and PACE with my dd. She was dyslexic with both auditory and visual processing disorders, dysnomia (word retrieval disorder), both short-term and working memory issues and ADD. My dd did both FFW 1&2 (I think Beth’s ds only did FFW 1) and that may have made the difference with the auditory processing part of the program. We followed with their reading program Master the Code. For my dd, PACE alone did not get my dd reading, she needed the systematic approach of MTC. The programs were challenging and hard work and my dd needed more time than protocol, but after completing both, my dd went from a 3rd grade reading level to an 11th grade level (she was in 8th grade at the time)! She made the least progress in her working memory. It defintely improved but not as much as I would have liked.

Here’s what we did in order:

Fast Forward 1 & 2 - like Beth’s ds, my dd needed more time than protocol

Phono-graphix Reading Program - my dd hit a brick wall with multi-syllable management

Interactive Metronome - for attention/focus/rhythm issues

PACE/MTC - cognitive development and reading program

NN - just a few sessions for vestibular issues. Got burned out at this time and discontinued therapy.

TLP - to fine-tune AP

ALL of these programs helped my dd. Of them all, I believe FFW 1&2 and PACE/MTC made the biggest positive impact on my dd’s life.

Blessings, momo

These decisions are hard, aren’t they? I provided PACE and Master the Code to my dyslexic son who was then 11 and in the 5th grade. He had auditory, visual and memory problems. I have subsequently become a PACE provider and have worked with about 15 children ages 8-18. I like the program a lot, and in nearly all the kids I worked with, I’ve seen very strong gains.

My son got about 3 years improvement in reading and that has been typical for the students I’ve worked with. He improved considerably in writing, although it is only now, 2 years later, that he is seeing the writing really coming together. His spelling was and is abyssmal. The difference is that he now knows the codes well enough to do a very proficient job with spell check. Before PACE his spellings didn’t even resemble the words he was trying to write. Some of the teenagers who were reading when they started with me have made very strong gains in confidence, math reasoning, comprehension, self-confidence, attention…yet they continue to struggle with test-taking. In the last 6 months or so, I have recommended that most of my students do The Listening Program before starting with me. That has made a really big difference. They are starting at a higher place, and we make more and faster progress in the Auditory Processing. I’ve been testing kids prior and post Listening Program, and I definitely see gains in their ability to differentiate, blend and manipulate sounds.

Good luck. I hope this helped!

I hope this helps.

Hi Connie,

When you say you offer PACE do you mean PACE alone or do you also offer Master the Code?

In my earlier post, I said that PACE alone did not get my dd reading. To put it more accurately, I should have said PACE alone did not get my dd reading AT GRADE LEVEL. Master the Code is what made that happen along with dramatically improving her spelling. MTC has a strong spelling component that really works at the student learning - and writing - the different sound pictures for the code. Now when my dd asks me how to spell a word during a homework assignment, I always ask how she thinks it is spelled. I would say she already has the word spelled correctly 80-90% of the time. A vast improvement over spelling before these programs!

Blessings, momo

I’ll add my ‘me too’ for this thread. I became a parent provider (I live only 45min from their HQ in Colo Springs) and was fortunate to be in the last class that offered parents the ability to be trainers for their kids. My dd was 8 at time. She has CAPD/Dyslexic (high visual spatial, low verbal split).

We sprung for a Tomatis booster before doing PACE - just so it would hopefully make PACE easier. My dd cruised thru the AP exercises. Other than the visual spatial/logic reasoning ones, these were actually her easist to do. She had difficulty with the ‘deletion’ ones at first, but mastered them. She even did well on the working memory exercises. HOWEVER - it took us 4mo. to complete and we did not hit level 12(highest level) on all exercises. We at least were at an age 9(some of the exercies’s higher levels you had to know multiplication - she didn’t know multiplication, so we stopped).

About 2mo. into program we started MTC. I saw most of her reading improvements when we did MTC. But, we were so burned out on PACE that we never completed MTC. We got thru the base code and had started the complex and just ran out of gas. It started getting to confusing for her.

I think age 10 for you is a good age to do this. I took out the MTC book this year (a year later and year older) and she did much better.

NET: Address sensory issues first (vision therapy and auditory tonal training etc). This will make it easier for child and less frustrating. PACE was not her favorite program, but there were some exercises that she thought fun. Age 9 or older for optimum results. If reading was/is a problem and child has significant auditory processing issues, follow with MTC. Use an experienced provider (I was not experienced).

PACE/MTC was not a life changing program for us. But it was not a waste of money either. I need to re-visit parts of the program again - just can’t muster the energy/motivation right now.

Ok, I have heard Master the Code mentioned several times here. What is that and where can I learn more about it? Can I use it at home with her? Its not the Explode the Code series is it?

Also more info on The Listening Program please?

Thanks so much for sharing your experience.

Master the Code is PACE’s reading program which follows PACE. We never did it because my son was so burned out. PACE by itself is not a reading program. I know people who followed PACE up with Reading Reflex which is what we did. There is no reason why you have to use their program. Their program is drill like with lots of repetition. It does seem to work for many children when other programs haven’t—just like Lindamood Bell’s programs do.

The Listening Program can be done at home. Connie’s comments duplicate others I have seen. There have been posts on it, even including where to purchase it most cheaply. Do a search. We got ours through our Neuronet provider so I can’t help you there.

Beth

Hi, momo. When I said I train PACE, I do train both PACE and Master the Code, although only about 1/3 of the students I work with actually go through Master the Code. (Not everyone comes with reading as a major challenge.) I find that most of my students make considerable progress while doing PACE and then it really comes together for them when they continue on with Master the Code.

I wish my son had gotten the spelling improvements your daughter did. He certainly is more accurate now than what he was, but he also chooses the wrong possible code frequently. An amazing thing has happened in the spelling arena, though. My son is spelling really well IN FRENCH. I was so worried about his first year of a foreign language and was ready with all kinds of accommodations. He’s doing great and he spells beautifully. In large part it is a mystery, but I’m thinking that his remediated processing skills plus the deliberate, repetitive way it is taught makes a huge difference for this new language.

Thanks for the note and glad to hear about the spelling progress.

Connie

Hi Connie,

It is fascinating how the same program can come together differently when presented to two different students. Definitely speaks to our individual uniqueness despite a shared array of learning problems (different causes for the similar problems).

I’m very interested in the name of the French program your son is using. My dd is a sophomore in HS this year, and so far, we’ve avoided having her take a foreign language (not a requirement for graduation). Recently, though, she expressed interest in taking French. The Rosetta Stone program comes highly recommended but I’m concerned that it might have an over-emphasis with an auditory presentation style. I think my dd would need a more PG or MTC approach. I don’t know what program the local HS uses.

Any thoughts?

Blessings, momoMO

Hi, momo. My son is in public school. The book they use is Discovering French (bleu) by Valette and Valette. It is a mixture of written and auditory. It is very sequential, and I think that’s the piece that works for him. Good luck.