Nancy, why Audioblox & PACE before Phono-Graphix?

Theoretically, it makes the most sense to take care of sensory motor deficits (vision therapy being an example) and cognitive deficits before embracing academics. Unless you are homeschooling, this is not always possible in real life. I have done academic remediation along side of other remediation for more than three years.

Some of the academic will fall into place once the sensory motor and cognitive are remediated but a child who does not know the code, will still not know the code. So I think it also depends on how old your child is, and how far behind he or she is.

would say that you ought to get the sensory motor in place before embracing the cognitive, especially PACE which is expensive. We did not but thought we had, and it was a big mistake.

Beth

It’s like building a house. You need the foundational skills in place before others can be learned.

majaw,

Certainly all children do not need PACE or Audiblox before Phono-Graphix. It would completely depend on your child’s particular profile.

Janis

It depends on the child. If the child didn’t learn because of dysteachia, then no Audiblox is needed before. If there are skills lacking or deficient, then Audiblox would help. Audiblox also strengthens anyone’s skills. It can be good for anyone no matter how they are doing. These types of skills can be increased for anyone.

I don’t know about PACE.

The others have provided great explanations. It’s fine to go ahead and start Phono-Graphix now. If you’re not satisfied with the results, then you can always do cognitive training also.

Nancy

So, how do I know whether or not he needs Audiblox?

We had him tested in 1st grade (Woodcock Johnson, Revised and Matrix Analogies Test and others) but haven’t had him tested since then. At the time his cognitive functioning placed him in the average (WJR) to high average range (MAT). But cautions that it could be higher because his speed was so slow. Should we have him tested again?

I’ve been contemplating having him tested again. This time outside of the school system. I have a friend who is a speech pathologist at the children’s hospital here who said she could get some recommendations for professionals from the person in charge of education at the hospital. I’m contemplating this so we are in charge of whether or not he gets the LD label. And, so we know how to help him.

At the end of testing in first grade we were told his problem was inefficient retrieval of information and that this is not amenable to intervention. But it did give a written recommendation that as he got older he would need accomodations of time.

I think there may be more to than just poor retrieval because he still struggles with reading and his spelling is terrible. In his planner today he wrote dough “bouw”.

Thanks for all the input.

Go to the www.audiblox2000.com message board or contact them by email and ask the audiblox people. They are pretty honest and straightforward.

It sounds to me like he would be a good candidate. It is not a quick “cure” and will take consistent time spent on it.

Most parents just go ahead and try Audiblox because they observe that their child has difficulties. Usually you are able to see significant gains after 40 to 60 hours of Audiblox training, so the initial investment of time and money is relatively low compared to most other types of intervention.

Retrieval problems often respond to bodywork (occupational therapy, sensory integration therapy, and especially NeuroNet). If there is an underlying retrieval problem (which is a neurological or sensory-based issue), cognitive training will yield only limited improvements.

It can be difficult to figure out whether a problem is primarily neurological in origin or not. Cognitive training can actually be helpful in this regard. If the child does not get significant gains from cognitive training, this is an indication that you should look again at sensory level development — vision, auditory, motor, sensory integration — and look for ways to stimulate these areas. In some cases, a child is considered neurologically impaired when in reality the lag is in the area of cognitive skills acquisition. A program such as Audiblox can help identify what the most significant issues are, whether it works or not.

Nancy

My son (8 1/2 and in third grade) was just tested formally last Thursday (at my request, not the school). He is in public schools and receiving no help other than a tutor outside of school once per week (and thank God for her, or we would be doing the same things over again this year that we have in the past…..trying to figure out why he struggles and why he is inattentive and perceived as sloppy). He has dysgraphia, short term memory disability, scotopic sensitivity, and basically struggles at Math, Reading and especially Writing. There is also a question as to whether or not he might have CAPD.

Is Audioblox something that would help him? He doesn’t seem to have dyslexia per se, only every once in awhile transposing numbers. However, he CANNOT copy from page to page without making a number of errors, nor can he write a paragraph without it becoming basically illegible (even if he copies it from another page). He struggles with handwriting because of his pencil grip for starters, and he holds his breath when he writes because he doesn’t use the right form. He expends so much energy to be neat…..he writes very hard and if he has to write more than a paragraph, it starts to look like one big word (not to mention how unorganized and sloppy it looks). He spells fairly well, but only for the spelling tests. If he has to transfer that over to writing a story, he can’t do it. I can give him a story orally (very slowly and enunciated) though, and he can spell quite well (he does know his vowel sounds). On a side note, he can also tell me a story that is so creative, I can hardly write fast enough to get it all down. However, the moment he tries that himself, the words and phrases get lost and it’s like a nightmare. At the formal testing, it was also found that he doesn’t have any convergence with his eyes. This might be contributing to some of his problems as well. My son just wants “a little storage bin in his head to tell him the directions” so that he can do things right.

Please…..if anyone has any suggestions for problems like his, I would be more than grateful to hear them. Like I say, he has just been tested and I haven’t received the recommendations yet. There is a tendency for teachers to think he is inattentive, but my opinion (and the testing people’s opinion) is that once he straightens out some of these problems, the inattentiveness will decrease.

Sorry to rattle on, but I can’t tell you how much research I have been doing to get him on the right track. There is a meeting coming up at school and I want to be very educated before I go in there. It seems that a low number of grades on his report card sent up a red flag……or perhaps it was because I took him to be formally tested at a University Medical School (and bypassed school because I wasn’t getting any answers).

I’m very interested in hearing whether or not Audioblox might be for him, or even PACE….I must admit, however, that I don’t even know what PACE is. I’m new at this!!

Thanks so much in advance!

Nancy said, “Retrieval problems often respond to bodywork (occupational therapy, sensory integration therapy, and especially NeuroNet).”

Hi Nancy, I did a Google search on NeuroNet and did not come up with anything - is there a website or a way to get more information about this program?

Thanks in advance!

Yes, you can possibly help retrieval difficulty and processing speed. NeuroNet’s website is www.neuronetonline.com.

Lori

LLD, if he has convergence problems you would normally want to get that addressed first. If he hasn’t had a complete developmental vision evaluation (see http://www.covd.org and http://www.childrensvision.com for more information), that would be the first thing to do. Vision therapy is very effective for convergence and other developmental vision problems. To keep costs down, many people do the exercises at home under the supervision of a developmental optometrist. HTS (computerized vision therapy) is also very effective for many — although not all — types of vision problems. See http://www.homevisiontherapy.com

Audiblox would likely help a lot, especially if you get the convergence problem under control. It requires commitment because you usually don’t start seeing gains until you’ve done about 40 hours of one-on-one with the exercises (and some children require even more). However, it tends to be very effective if you stick with it. See http://www.audiblox2000.com

Nancy