Master The Code

I’m trained in PACE and MTC.

PACE is a training program that develops a wide variety of cognitive skills, including auditory processing skills. MTC is the newer reading add-on program to PACE. You can do just PACE but, in order to do MTC, the child needs to do PACE first. Eventually the company plans to make MTC a standalone program.

My own daughter did PACE with great results. At the time, MTC was not yet on the market so we followed up PACE with a Phono-Graphix intensive. This worked extremely well for us, and I am a big fan of PG.

Several mothers I know have put a child through PACE and MTC. All three said that MTC was very helpful (although one child still doesn’t read at grade level).

Mary

Mary:

I read your posts all the time and have learned a lot from you. I appreciate your response. I often copy your responses and keep them on file.

I see your posts on here all the time, please help me with this. My stepdaughter, who is having difficility with reading comprehension and math, has a half-brother who is in PACE this summer. Her mother refuses to discuss any problems with us regarding her “new” family and I would like to understand what this program deals with so we can maybe better understand some of the problens she is having.

I’m confused about whose problems you want to better understand, but I can certainly describe PACE.

PACE (Processing and Cognitive Enhancement) is a cognitive skills training program that is very comprehensive and intensive. Basically, it requires that the child spend 3 one-hour sessions per week with a trained tutor and an equal number of hours per week practicing “homework” with an adult.

The program is usually set up for 10 to 12 weeks. It consists of about 90 different exercises with perhaps a dozen levels of difficulty for each exercise. An example of a very simple exercise working on directionality would be reading the direction of arrows on a page. An advanced example of this exercise might be reading the same arrows but in a sequence of adding a quarter-turn clockwise to the second arrow, a half-turn clockwise to the third arrow, three-quarters turn clockwise to the fourth arrow, reading the fifth arrow as is, etc. — in time to a fast metronome beat. There would be many “levels” to be achieved on the way to the advanced form of the exercise.

The program is geared to development of cognitive skills in a wide number of areas — visual sequencing, visual short-term memory, auditory sequencing, auditory short-term memory, pattern recognition, logic and reasoning, strategy development, processing speed, multi-tasking, etc. PACE does not deal with academic remediation, but rather works on developing the skills that make academic learning easier.

Hope this answers your question.

Mary

Thank-you, that answered many questions. We are having many problems with recognition and retrieval. I suspected that her half brother may have a PDD rather than an LD and that may help give us some direction. In this house heredity seems to play a major part in our lives-my husband and ex-husband and son all have ADHD. I wanted to be able to take a better look at all aspects of her heredity to find a place to start. Her Mom seems overwhelmed enough with the son-I just finally took her to the eye doctor myself becuase she was unable to read-glasses fixed the problem. Unfortunately with a brother who requires much attention, she gets lost in the shuffle.

I see what you’re getting at.

If you want to post details about your stepdaughter’s problem areas and strengths, I might be able to give you a few leads on websites to check out.

PACE is a wonderful program, but it does not correct sensory/motor level deficits. From what I know of PDD, there are usually significant delays on the sensory/motor level which ideally should be corrected as much as possible before starting PACE.

Mary

Thanks-I need all the help I can get on this one. We started with a reading problem (reading and comprehension) so I started with Phonics (her school district does not teach phonics) and that helped, a bit. She was still struggling and we went to a Developmental Optometrist who has been treating my son, she had a mild problem but was VERY farsighted. So we got glasses-just picked up on Saturday but definite improvement in READING. But we have other problems: 1. She cannot learn math facts, she knows how to do the process but she cannot commit them to memory; 2. She does not understand (going into 4th grade) when she is supposed to regroup-she does not recognize the reason for doing it except that she is told to do it but then she will regroup on problems that do not require regrouping; 3. She does not remember things-i.e. my husband asked her to get a loaf of bread from the rerigerator and after 5 jinutes of staring at the refrigerator we finally were asked what a loaf was (it is definitely a word she has heard before and she knew we were making toast for 5 people so a slice would not have worked, so she could not retrieve the word loaf nor could she process that we needed more than one slice, so the bag was the loaf; 4. When she reads a new word she just keeps reading without trying to figure out what the word means, so loses complete meaning of that sentence; 5. Actually completely forgot a long conversation yesteray about where her father was 4 hours after having the conversation and did not finally remember until after given 3 clues (he was at the neighbors house helping to add a bedroom in the basement). This is not the first time for this-my husband works on Sundays and at least 2 weeks a month she will ask me on Sunday where he is; 6. She memorizes her spelling words long enough to take the test, and 2 days later cannot remember how to spell them.

I know how to deal with some things, my son has ADHD and a Visual LD along with a Mensa level IQ-a MAJOR handful but all problems I have researched and dealt with, in fact I fought with the school district for months that he had a reading comprehension problem and was blown off-I went out on my own and found the problem (and as his scores have incresaed tremendously I did the right thing). I don’t know where to start to find a reason for this or a way to help her. I understand that many people do not believe in memorizing math facts, but when you reach higher level math, you do not have the time to mentally add 7+7+7 to figure out 3x7 (which is what she does). Again, the school district does not feel she has a problem because “she is performing at the level expected”-her CAT scores were all below average.

Sorry this has become so long winded. Any help or direction toward help is greatly appeciated.

Many people on this board are experienced teachers and can give you much good advice. You have a solid backing of support any time you need to ask.

As far as math (BTW I have an Honors Math degree and teach/tutor math K through college, so please accept this as advice from someone who really has been there)

(a) speed kills. Do not do speed drills, period. Fight against your school if they try to force speed. Remember the old saying “more haste, less speed”. Take your time and learn one skill right, even if it takes six months. Yes, she will be “behind” on tests — so this is a change? But in a few years, she will be *ahead*, because the other kids are doing memorize-and-forget (the tortoise and hare syndrome).

(b) I have posted on the Math section of LDOnline a simple approach to teaching memorization of math facts. It hasn’t had huge popularity because it’s simple, basic, cheap, and free of snake oil — all it takes is time and effort (and there goes my audience.) Try looking it up on the old messages, and if it’s not there email me to ask (I’ll be off-line for a few days this week but will get back to you later). You are absolutely right; theories without facts are just moonshine; trust your instincts.

(c) Try using a child’s abacus, ten rows of ten beads, and work through many many (hundreds of)concrete problems to make regrouping make sense. Again, you’re right that paper and pencil drill is not going to solve this; keep trusting your instincts.Go concrete first, and return to paper after it’s over-learned.

(d) Get back to me or some of the other experienced teachers on this board for more ideas on problem-solving and other things, after you have these things down.

(e) I am hearing a lot of good things on the board about Singapore Math — haven’t seen it myself but it’s getting reasoned praise — you might want to look into it.

(g) Avoid commercial workbooks, which consist of disconnected trivia and drill without meaning along with eye-confusing and distracting visual presentation.

(f) If you do start on a program of texts or workbooks, start at the beginning and review right from the start — Grade 2 or even 1. Make haste slowly. If she reviews Grades 1 and 2 this year, 3 and 4 next year, and so on, in three years she’s on grade level and in four years she pulls ahead. On the other hand, if she fails Grade 4 again this year and next, she’s not learning at all and has only two more years of failure to remember.

*****************************************************

On the memory issue, I can only offer some vague suggestions and hope.

PACE may help memory — many people swear by it. Look into it. If there’s a provider you can reach, perhaps you can try a couple of introductory lessons before you contract for the whole program. If it does seem to be the thing to do, look into the parent training.

For my particular NLD pattern PACE looks frightening — I keep seeing what people claim it has done for their kids and I think I could have benefited from it, and then I look at the exercises used and particularly the use of the metronome and I get nauseated just thinking about it, since my NLD causes my muscles to spasm (including eyes and speech) when I’m the least bit nervous or stressed. I’ve tutored a kid who had this spasming too. If your kid has this spasming pattern, think twice about the metronome, or if you do use it, go much more slowly than the program suggests.

Sometimes what appear to be memory deficits can be something else: stress; hearing (especially ear infections/inflammation); illness, especially fevers; allergies (you don’t remember much when you’re nauseated); fatigue, which may be related to all of the above; eye fatigue (as a farsighted person with astigmatism, I can tell you it’s worse than standing on your feet all day);distraction, especially if you’re a one-instruction-at-a-time person, as is my daughter; or general overload, too much stimulation over too long a time.

Try checking up on health — you say you have got her glasses; good, you may see surprising improvements in other areas, such as fatigue and coordination — keep working. Check with a good doctor for low-level ear inflammation — not enough that the doctor wants to use antibiotics, but enough to make hearing fuzzy and cause stress headaches. Antihistamines may help, but have a care for overuse and addiction. Food allergies are hard to diagnose, hard to get doctors to work with, and hard to get other people to believe in; get good books (beware snake oil) and try an elimination diet, but do be careful to get enough vitamins and protein and other nutrients.; removing milk from the diet can clear up ears and stomachs and general feelings of misery in sensitive people BUT you absolutely must find another source of calcium (cheese if possible, supplements if not; vegetables are NOT enough). Look at the noise/stress/distraction level of the home and school on *her* level — does she have anywhere to get peace and quiet to concentrate, or is she bombarded with junk stimulation? Meaningful stimulation, communication is good; random noise and visual pollution is a distraction that can make you shut down from fatigue.

Again beware snake oil; none of these is an absolute definitive answer, but two or three in combination may make a big difference over time.

A final suggestion which may seem off the wall, but has been proven to work; try lessons in music, marching, and/or rhythmic dance and gymnastics. The same thinking patterns as are learned in the PACE program with a metronome are accessed in other rhythmic activities. Also, a child likes to succeed at a special skill.

Best wishes, and remember many good people are here to help.

I did go back through your old posts and a lightbulb went off, she doesn’t get it when asked 1+5 and she gets the answer in a minute or so, she is asked 1+6 and it takes the same minute. She does not get the relationship. I really started noticing the math difficulties this year (3rd grade) because my son skipped 3rd grade math and I had to teach him multiplication and division last summer so he would not be behind, and am going through the same thing with my daughter now. This has brought more to light the fact that Lauren is “getting” somethng she has never done before while Katelyn is struggling to remember what she did learn. No I am not comparing children.

If there were other ideas I missed (I just went through 4 months of posts), please let me know. Thank-you for any and all help offered.

As far as the memory, I don’t think it is medical. She is stressed but when I look at my husband, he has the same memory problems and spent most of grade school hearing that he was lazy and was “retarded”. We discovered several years ago, when going through therapy for my son that he has ADHD also. But this does not explain inability to remember, my son remembers EVERYTHING. I am thinking another coexisting problem that is possibly hereditary.

Try going to http://www.nldline.com. In the articles section is some information about the “profile” of NLD (NVLD). Reading that should give you a feel for whether or not your daughter fits the profile. I am seeing a lot of flags in your posts that point in that direction — no help from school because performing as expected, difficulty with math, good reading skills but poor comprehension, difficulties with inference (a “loaf” must mean a bag of bread), difficulties making connections (it’s Sunday, so my Dad must be…), etc. Many NLD children appear to be doing fine until they hit high school, and many are never diagnosed even then because so few professionals are familiar with it. Early interventions are extremely helpful in helping these kids cope later so, if she has NLD, she’s very lucky to have an observant stepmother around!

A few PACE providers on the list at yahoo have put an NLD child through the program, but I don’t know what their results were. Offhand, my guess would be that other types of intervention would be likely to be more helpful than PACE — if it’s NLD, which is a huge assumption on my part. If you post one way or the other later (you should probably start a new thread so more people see your post), you can either get more leads on NLD or junk that idea and pursue other possibilities.

For the math facts problem, I suggest using Math Facts the Fun Way (http://www.citycreek.com). It tends to work very quickly, and kids find it enjoyable.

Mary

The City Creek site I had checked out before but wanted to know what we were dealing with first. Whn I went online with NLD I was shocked-some criteria don’t match on first glance but looking into things more (have been reading it for 2 hours) things make sense, and I was leaning in the ADD direction because of my husband’s history.

I am heading to the library now to pick up some recommended books before going any further. One thing to mention for anyone reading this, it was quoted to be a “disorder of confidence” which completely explains her in a nutshell. She appears almost afraid when dealing with math, with being asked about what she just read, and with meeting and dealing with people. In her case, she will choose playing with the neighbor’s 4 year old over playing with the other children her age in the neighborhood. This may very well explain a lot. It also explains why she asks if she should wear shorts or pants when it is 85 degrees outside, and why she asks if she should wear sandles or sneakers when she is going outside to play kickball, and whether the dishes should go in the sink or the dishwasher when the sink is empty and the dishwasher is clearly filled with the dishes from those of us who have already finished!!!!!

Also picking up book, Math the Fun Way which deals with teaching math facts in a more visual manner. No matter what the outcome of the other, I think re-teaching her math facts this way will work. Unfortunatelt dealing with her mother is probably going to be as bad as dealing with my ex-who took me to court over paying for half of Vision Therapy stating that the Occupational Therapist at school said it wasn’t necessary (I have yet to find where he got this from!!) but refuses to call me (after the 10th request) to discuss our son’s WISC, TCS, CAT’s to understand why he is receiving VT!!!!!! Her mother didn’t want to discuss the outcome of her eye exam nor her new glasses.

The big question now is, I work for a school district-I am a substitute (a sped substitute actually since that is all they call me for because I enjoy it and the schools request me) getting ready to start my Masters in School Psychology and I had NEVER heard of this until last night when I read your post???? We are in a very advanced school district with top ratings……….how to eduacte the educators?????????

My son, who is also going in to the 4th grade, has the same type of troubles remembering things and retrieving words and information that you describe. We are thinking about doing PACE to help him. He has been tested many times, and he does have a weakness in visual memory and distractors wiping out his short-term memory. Word retrieval is also a BIG problem which affects many areas of his life - social conversations, answering questions, story-telling, written expression, to name a few.

When he was younger, he would just repeat back the question and try to act cute, instead of answering. Later in school, he would just answer with whatever “somewhat related” answer that he could access the words. Now days, he’ll say something like “that boy with the red hair who poked me with the pencil one day,” instead of. “Joey” his friend since first grade. I describe his behavior as traveling from point A to point B, but first taking a detour around the world first. His pediatric neurologist just suggested that we enroll him in Cognitive Therapy to help him more with processing and memory. We are going to do that. However, I’d planning on either doing BrainSkills (the home program) or PACE before we begin.

You had some GREAT suggestions! My son has some similar challenges as described by the other poster. I am considering PACE or BrainSkills the home program.

What do you think of PACE?

My stepdaughter does the ame thing-we ask a question and instead of answering the question she will go into a visual explanation. She also does not “get it” when you make analogies or statements ike “steal the base and run home”-it was so funny to read the NLD forum because they mentined this particular line from an Amelia Bedelia story that we had just read several weeks ago, and though her stepbrother plays baseball, I had to explain at first why it was funny that Amelia had picked up the base and drun to her house with it. She takes things at their literal meaning. I have not had luck finding the books that were recommended on this subject but am still searching.

We have not done PACE, MaryMN I believe has a child who has. It originally came up because her half-brother (yes this is a FUN family) started PACE on July 2 and heredity bring what it is, I wanted to know what it is. Good Luck, keep in touch, it sounds like we have many of the same issues to deal with.

Regarding the difficulty with memory. Your son needs to have the sense of
touch added to his learning difficulties. Imagine, for example, trying to teach
someone about the feel of velvet with none available. What a difference the
sense of touch makes. Also—pencils, computer keys, etc. do not feel.
Fingers do feel. Have him write his spelling words on a carpet square. You
have him draw his fingers across the carpet, say the word, and have his eyes
on the word. He would then write each letter clearly as he says it and sees
it. Try it. When the student is given a spelling test, for example, he can
write the word on the desk top. This is writing it as he has learned it. Many
times it will come back to him. Try doing 5 words and adding 5 words
every night from his classroom lesson. Good luck.

Parent, teacher, and grandparent of LD children