Any opinions on Learning Rx or PACE?

The parents can buy the home version of PACE called Brainskills for $500 and do that part themselves. The reading therapy itself is another question. I understand the PACE Master the Code program is similar to Phono-Graphix, so they could also seek a Phono-Graphix tutir, or if they’d like to do that themselves as well, try ABeCeDarian www.abcdrp.com.

If they can afford the $10,000, great. If they can’t, there are other ways especially if they can work with the child some themselves.

I am trained in PACE. It can be extraordinarily helpful for many children and it has an excellent auditory processing section. BrainSkills is the home version of PACE and, although it contains only one-third of the PACE exercises, it has all of the auditory processing exercises.

How old is the child? PACE exercises start at about a 6yo level (higher for some of the exercises), so I usually do not recommend it or BrainSkills unless a child is at least 8yo. The LearningRx centers have newer programs available to them for younger children.

The family can try calling or emailing the company (see http://www.processingskills.com for contact info) to ask about PACE providers in their area. Independent PACE providers often charge considerably less than the LearningRx franchises. Once a franchise moves in, the company will not train new PACE providers. However, existing PACE providers in the area are allowed to continue to provide the program (along with Master the Code and BrainSkills) as long as they remain in good standing. Independent providers often work out of their home, so overhead costs are much less.

The LearningRx franchise may offer BrainSkills with a training session. Families who purchase BrainSkills can also purchase Master the Code. If you and the family are highly motivated, this would be the least expensive way to do the program. Best approach is to spend at least one hour a day five days a week one-on-one with the exercises. With this schedule, you will usually start seeing significant gains outside of the program after 40 to 60 training hours.

My biggest concern is the age of the child and whether or not he has undiagnosed sensory integration disorder (SID), undiagnosed developmental vision delays (see http://www.childrensvision.com) and/or slow rapid naming. These are three types of problems that seriously interfere with cognitive skills training.

Nancy

Nancy,
The child is seven years old. I will forward your information to the parents. How would we go about finding a PACE tutor in our area? When I went to the website and clicked on the “find a tutor” the link sent me to Learning RX. Does that mean that there are no independent tutors in our area? :?:

Oh, my. That’s interesting. It costs a lot to open a franchise, so I expect the company is throwing all of its support behind the franchise and not advertising any PACE providers who may be in the area. In that case, your only hope of finding a PACE provider is via word-of-mouth (or possibly advertising locally). When there is no LearningRx franchise in the area, the company forwards your contact information to all PACE providers within a reasonable distance. Sounds as if they didn’t do that….

Dear Nancy,

I could not follow your link to SID.
Could you please tell me how to find out more about the three sensory issues that block cognitive development. I will continue to look on this site. Perhaps you have posted it somewhere else as well.

Thanks,
Joan

I tutor reading and often with kids like this the best thing to do is to go back to Square 1 and re-teach. I don’t know Open Court in particular but a failing with many commercial phonics-based programs is that it is still phonics lite with a lot of sight memorization and with realtively small amounts of practice. Average kids can get the concepts with five examples and one day of practice; others may need twenty examples and practices spiralled ten times over a couple of months. If you would like my packet of outlines, now a book-in-progress, please email me at [email protected]

Joan,
SID (sensory integration disorder) is diagnosed by occupational therapists.

There is a huge SID email list on Yahoo that is very active. Go to http://groups.yahoo.com and search for SID_DSI (that is an underline separating the caps) to join.

The book “The Out-of-Sync Child” by Kranowitz provides a lay introduction to SID. Libraries usually have this book.

Nancy,

This question refers back a few weeks when you talked about slow rapid naming. Is there anything that can be done to help this problem?
Always Wondering…

Regarding slow rapid naming, this is most often a neurological problem. Neurology can be stimulated with bodywork therapies. The best one I know of that could have an effect on slow rapid naming would be NeuroNet (http://www.neuronetonline.com). It is so new it is hard to find providers, but it can be done long distance with regular trips to a clinic and exercises done daily at home.

Balametrics is a home program, parts of which are incorporated into NeuroNet. Website is http://www.balametrics.com. NACD and Handle are other possibilities. If it were my child, though, I’d find some way to do NeuroNet. I’d probably also add in TLP (http://www.advancedbrain.com) just because this type of sound therapy seems to have a wide-ranging impact in terms of stimulating neurological connections (not just auditory processing).

Regarding Rapid Naming response - I’m starting a new post for my response because I don’t want to hijack this one.