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Selected Stories |
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A Recent Graduate
A recent graduate is a very bright boy who has had years of speech therapy. He quickly fell in love with the Fast ForWord games and it was often difficult for his mother to get him to go home after the sessions. One day, he declared an eagerness to come to Fast ForWord, but complained about "having to go" to soccer. After completing Fast ForWord, he was clamoring to be allowed to do Step 4word.
His mother reports that since the time he was wrapping up his last days in Fast ForWord, she has noticed a dramatic decrease in the number of times he asks her to repeat what she has just said. He is much more self-confident, often in ways that she had not noticed that he lacked self-confidence. At home, he was no longer playing video games alone day in and day out. Instead, he was getting out more into the neighborhood, looking for other kids to play with. Even his grandmother, living halfway across the country, reported changes. He was now able to carry on a telephone conversation with her. Before, he had chattered incessantly, evidently so that he would not have to listen on the telephone. Now, he could listen to her and follow what she was saying, so he did not have to do all the talking.
Although still quite competitive, he is now able to notice his successes and not dwell on the times when he was not as successful as he had hoped. His teachers report that he is "not the same child" as they started with at the beginning of the year. His test scores do show the same sorts of gains reported by Scientific Learning.
This student had been evaluated by a local neuropsychologist before Fast ForWord, and was evaluated again following Fast ForWord. The results obtained by this outside evaluator confirm our findings. It is significant to note that he was tested, not on the language measures that we might give him, but on neuropsychological measures, and the gains were impressive. His evaluator wrote:
"[His] grades have apparently improved, particularly since his involvement in the Fast ForWord program last summer. He is currently in fourth grade ... and receiving A's and B's on his mid term report. His language-based skills have apparently improved. He is less frustrated and demonstrates increased self-esteem in the classroom. His behaviors have improved regarding engaging in academic endeavors."
Even with his gains, he was still described as having a reading disability. This was due to the continuing expectation that a student this bright would probably be reading better.
He did return for Step 4word. This time the gains were not as dramatic, but still notable. He made a large and significant improvement in his ability to listen accurately to what someone is saying when there is noise in the background. Also, although his language scores did not improve at all, the speech pathologist who evaluated him observed that he was now responding much more quickly. He did not have to think for as long or employ as many compensating strategies as before in order to arrive at responses of comparable quality.
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