Earobics vs. Fast ForWord ?

FastForWord is much more expensive — about $900 for the software. Also, you have to get it through a provider, so there is a provider fee involved. If you have a 4-year college degree, you can train online to become a provider yourself (using the company’s CrossTrain). The program itself can be done at home, using a computer with a good soundboard and headphones.

Some people say that if you use Earobics as intensively as FastForWord (typical FFW protocol is five 20-minute games per day, 5 days a week), you can get similar results. However, the technology involved is completely different. My own suspicion is that you might get some results using Earobics that way (although how you would persuade a child to spend that much time on it remains a mystery to me), but it’s unlikely to be as good as the results from FFW. FFW uses very sophisticated technology to modify the sounds in the game, and the software interactively modifies the difficulty of each game to suit the child’s responses.

No one can tell in advance if a specific child will respond well to a specific therapy. However, given the problems you have listed, FastForWord would likely be helpful. Some children do better with FFW if they do TLP (http://www.advancedbrain.com) first, so you may want to look into that program also.

Nancy

My son had similar symptoms and was remediated with LIPS. Just another possibility. If you’re going to spend that much money anyway… We ried earobic before Lips last april and it was very difficult for him. Esp the rhymes and the rhythmn. He “recognizes” rhymes now but it is a learned response. My younger son too has no recognition of rhyme. Hat, Bat, Cat, Mat don’t sound alike to them…

For my students who don’t hear the similarities, sometimes they can feel them — their mouth & lips & teeth & tongue are in the same places.
The rhymes game is especially hard because even if you can hear the rhyme — oh, you’re supposed to flag the word that DOESN”T rhyme. My nephew took a while to get that (but it’s good training for resisting impulses :))

youngest has learned enough of Lips to begin to read at almost 5. We learned a lot from older bro. And it was a cinch compared to what Jack had to go thru. However, he’ll still mix up the beinning and end sounds. As in “Frog and frame rhyme.”

This is *good* thinking skills, NOT a problem! Especially at age five.

Just say “Well, frog and frame have the same *starting* sounds, you are right. That has a special name; it’s called alliteration. Now, when words have the same *ending* sounds, that is called a rhyme.”
This (a) compliments the child for good thinking skills and creativity, as opposed to punishing thinking; (b) clarifies what the issue is in definite terms; (c) introduces a new idea which will be in the memory later when this is taught.

Many poorly-thought-out programs tell kids that rhyning words are “words that sound the same”.
What the heck does that mean?!?
How do you define “same” here?
There homophones that sound exactly the same, like reed-read or whole-hole; there are rhymes that are the same except for the initial consonant, like reed-seed and whole-pole; there are rhymes that are part-whole, like freed-reed and art-tart-start; there are rhymes that are multisyllables with only the final vowel-consonant matching, like happiness-endless, there are other rhymes that are multisyllables with some ending syllables matching and some beginning not, like correction-direction-dissection; there are rhumes that sound the same but don’t look the same like put-foot and reed-bead; then there are words that don’t rhyme but have a lot of beginning or middle sounds the same, like understand-thunderstorm — I repeat, what the heck is “sound the same” supposed to mean??!!
It constantly amazes me that any kids exposed to this kind of stuff learn any reading at all. Mostly, they seem to learn to completely ignore the crazy instructions and copy the models, a habit that stands them in good stead until middle and high school but then lets tham down with a thump when work gets more complex.

So, compliment your kid on really good thinking skills, and then *teach* him what a rhyme is — same ending sounds, including at least one consonant sound and one vowel sound.