This is supposed to really help my son who has real auditory processing issues. But, if everything that really helped my son had really helped my son....you know the drill...
Anyone have experience with this? Did it help? Were you able to keep your kids focused on it for the whole time?
Raquel
We did it the second year it was in existence. I had followed the research while it was still a graduate project at Princeton. It is definitely research-based. We tried it with our PDD-NOS, hearing impaired son (he has a DOUBLE dose of auditory processing issues from each disability). He was about 7 or 8. His language tested at age 3 at the time, both receptive and expressive. By the end of the Fast Forward program, he didn't have much of a boost in expressive, but he had a ONE YEAR boost in receptive -- that was a 25% boost!!! It stuck, too. The program was originally designed for use with kids who had trouble learning to read because there was research that showed that reading problems are linked to auditory processing problems. It was not actually designed to help with language, per se. But it certainly helped my son. He was able to tolerate two hours a day on the program. We did it in the late 1990's. I'm sure it's improved since then. It's expensive but worth it if the child fits the profile it was designed for.Yes. Lindamood-Bell is research-based, so it qualifies under IDEA 2004. Problem is, Lindamood-Bell wants control over its program, so there are VERY few teachers who are qualfied to teach this. Many school districts are forced to use the LMB centers, which charge 0/hr., so the SD's avoid recommending LMB. At least on Long Island, lots of people have had to go to a Hearing to get LMB invoked and the Hearing fees can often exceed the out of pocket tuition the parents would have paid. The standard recommendation from LMB for its program is 20 hours a week for 6 weeks. That comes to ,000! And if SD's utilize the center, they are required to provide transportation back and forth, so that could double that cost. Here on LI, there are few qualified teachers trained in LMB because LMB does not hire qualified teachers for its centers. They don't have to because they are a private service. They simply train intelligent, non-certified people. This results in no teachers having worked at LMB, so when the LMB instructors quit, they can't move into school positions. And highly qualified teachers simply are not trained in this method. School ARE required to use Highly Qualified Teachers, so the end result is that SD's are forced to use the LMB Centers, at their excrutiatingly high prices. They are not allowed to hire the non-qualified LMB teachers as consultants because they don't satisfy the Highly Qualified Teacher requirements. So IEP Teams avoid recommending the LMB program.
I know all of this because my son's IEP Team approved LMB for him over a year ago. They bought the program (to the tune of ,000) and then could not implement it. They have been stalling ever since about implementing it because they can't find a teacher who is qualified to do it. And to send my son by bus an hour and a half each way to the nearest LMB Center is ridiculous. He's HS age and needs to do his school program, too, which includes work experience. There are simply not enough hours in the day to fit in LMB at the Center (our written agreement is that he get 2 hours a day after school until the 120 hours recommended is reached). Still, I'm going to Due Process to try to force the District to DO SOMETHING. At age 16, LMB VV is the only program out there that is age appropriate and addresses the sorts of problems my son has, based on the research done on the program.
We are about to start soon. My SP had to get recertified in it as it has beenWhat type of child would benefit from fast foward? Would it be something to use for a non verbal child?
To my understnding, a child has to have a certain amount of receptive
Risperdal? Or Abilify?
Or Tenex? That can have some calming effect.
His blood pressure runs on the low side so no tenex or clonidine. He did mention abilify. We'll have to see how this buspar works out.
He did take clonidine for sleep before the melatonin. It really aggrivated him. We quickly gave that up. His other Dr. never obtained a base blood pressure before trying it. Big mistake.
He tried adderall but it went so bad after just one dose neither the Dr. or I want to try it again. Actually he has an appointment on thursday and the Dr. wants him to try Buspar. His obsessions withthe bus and other automobiles are getting out of control. The Dr. thinks his obsessions are due to anxiety. We started this morning. He said it could help his attention also and promised me it was a mild med. with few potential side effects. I'm giving it a try because we can't go anywhere without him trying to get into other peoples cars. His expression changes when he obsseses over the automobiles and he gets really upset. I think thats why the doc. thinks he needs something. He does not want to try an SSRI because of some warning that recently came out about them. He doesn't like them in children with autism.
How do these things come out of the blue like this? He was doing so well. You never know what around the corner with autism.
Have you had him evaluated for medication? Stimulants can work wonders. Of course, there are side-effects. But we put our son on Ritalin at age 7 because he couldn't focus on the page. It worked wonders. Please use a doc with expertise in Autism if you plan on going this route, though.Although my son does have receptive language which is increasing steadily. He has very little attention and even with a program that he is fixated on he may stay on the computer10-15 min at a time. And the computer increases his self stim behavior.
His lack of attention is holding him back.
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