Fast ForWord

May 23, 2001

What is Nordic Naturals?

>Ramsey is also taking Nordic Naturals Ultimate DHA ,4 capsules per day and

>just today the P.E. Teacher told me that he noticed an big improvements in

>his speech. He didn't know that Ramsey was taking anything.That was just

>great news for us.

May 24, 2001

Wow, Jeff please answer some of Carols questions. I am interested in

hearing this too. Sorry for the dumb question, but what exactly does global

apraxia mean? THis is new to me. Tara

Jeff,

You mentioned this program is great with kids who have auditory processing

problems, which I am assuming is common in kids with apraxia? How do you

test specifically for auditory processing? or do they deduce that depending

on IQ results? Who would diagnose this? Who would diagnose visual

processing problems? We live two hours NORTH of Boston, MA........can you

recommend people who would diagnose/treat in our area.....near the capital

of NH? I went to this company's site and had my son take the reading rover

little test and was surprised at how few words he could hear the begining

sound. Now that he is school age I am thinking maybe we need to get a lot

more specific than just " global apraxia " so would appreciate any more

thoughts you have on this. Carol (mom to Micah 5 - global apraxia and CJ 8 -

a ball of absentminded energy)

August 25, 2001

Lucy-

Did your grandson do the program at home or in the therapist's office? I

have found that the children that I have had on the Fast For Word programs

have done much better and have enjoyed the program more when they have done

it at my office. The only reasons that I would recommend the program at home

would be for financial considerations (cheaper at home) or for scheduling

problems (if a child has many other time obligations). I have found that the

program is generally fun for the children to do (not Nintendo fun, but more

fun than drilling). Let me know how he did overall and whether you see any

progress in the coming months. Sometimes it does take a while to see the

progress in real life.

Jeff Korn, SLP

NY

http://expage.com/speech4all

January 19, 2002

If you would like some more information about Fast ForWord, you should check out

their website. This describes their various products, and what audience they are

recommended for.

http://www.scilearn.com/

Hope this helps,

Rhonda son Cherry

mom to Maddie, age 4, oral-motor sequencing issues, suspected apraxic

Richmond Hill, Ontario CANADA

Visit ECHO - Canada's Apraxia Support Group website at

http://apraxiaontario.homestead.com/

----- Original Message -----

From: cailg547

Sent: Saturday, January 19, 2002 3:03 PM

and all, Regarding Fast Forward, do you know if it is

recommended that the child be at a certain level and what that is, in

order to start this program? Could you describe what fast forward

entails? It does sound like it holds great promise. I have been

thinkging about an auditory processing type therapy and am

interested. Thanks again, Carolyn

January 20, 2002

(After I wrote this I received an email from Dr. Tallal because of

another topic we are talking about -it's late and I didn't want to re

write - so I'll just add this following quote her email contained

that you may all find of interest:

" The issue of Apraxia/language

impairment/reading is exactly why I feel sure that Fast ForWord will

be useful for so many children with the broader spectrum of language

based learning impairments, including apraxia. " )

Hi Caroline!

I'll ask Dr. Tallal,

http://www.cmbn.rutgers.edu/cmbn/faculty/tallal.html who is a new

advisor to CHERAB and the creator behind Fast ForWord answer this as

soon as she can. I know that she is away until early next week. Dr.

Tallal is one of the professionals helping me design the late talker

brochures to the pediatricians/schools/hospitals Nationwide that will

be distributed by a Nationwide Organization and because of that she

had one of the doctors from the Scientific Learning Center fax me the

following survey for Fast ForWord:

Observational Survey for Parents:

The Fast ForWord family of programs were developed for children with

language problems. particularly children who have difficulty

processing the sounds they hear. This series of questions may help

to indicate whether your child has difficulty learning language and

reading skills. Choose one answer for each question to indicate how

often the behavior is exhibited in your child's daily life. (answers

for each are either RARELY, SOMETIMES or FREQUENTLY)

YOUR CHILD'S ABILITY TO UNDERSTAND WHAT PEOPLE SAY

1. Does your child ever misunderstand what you say?

2. Does your child request that information or instructions be

repeated?

3. Does your child deny hearing the beginning or middle of long

sentences or groups of sentences?

4. Does your child have difficulty understanding humor?

YOUR CHILD'S ABILITY TO EXPRESS HIMSELF ORALLY

1. Does your child give slow or delayed responses?

2. Does your child speak with a peculiar pace (too slow, long pauses

with repetition)?

3. Does your child have difficulty reconstructing a story in

appropriate order?

4. Does your child lose his/her way in sentences, or fail to finish

longer sentences?

5. Does your child speak mostly in single sentences rather than

elaborate on a topic?

6. Dos your child have trouble rephrasing a point if he/she is not

understood at first?

7. Dos your child try to communicate a point using too few words?

8. Does your child try to avoid typical interactions with strangers

in noisy environments? (for example, ordering at the counter in a

store or fast food restaurant)

9. Does your child use few descriptive words?

10. Does your child use imprecise words or phrases?

11. Does your child have difficulty finding the right word (or does

he/she substitute with inappropriate words)?

12. Does your child mispronounce typical words sounds?

13. Does your child have difficulty using humor?

YOUR CHILD'S BEHAVIOR IN A GROUP SETTING

1. Does your child get confused in a noisy situation?

2. Does your child allow other people to finish his/her sentences?

3. Does your child have difficulty understanding or integrating

visual/body language cues with language cues? (i.e., does your child

tend to misinterpret another person's mood or demeanor?)

4. Is your child reluctant to engage in conversations?

5. Does your child avoid group activities?

6. Do other children often repeat things, or speak especially

loudly, to your child?

7. Does your child have difficulty understanding the point or focus

of a groups activities?

8. Does your child have difficulty following changing dynamics among

people in a group?

9. Does your child get teases or left out because of difficulty

keeping up with what peers are saying?

10. Do your child's peers direct their conversations to each other,

but not to your child?

11. Does your child have unexplained behavior problems?

12. Does your child have insufficient confidence, self esteem?

HOW YOUR CHILD DOES AT SCHOOL

1. Does your child have difficulty remembering questions when called

on in class?

2. Does your child have an attention problem?

3. Does your child have difficultly with phonics (such as

identifying the initial or last sound of a word, segmenting a word

into syllables, or decoding new words)?

4. Does your child have difficulty with reading or learning to read?

5. Does your child have difficulty with spelling or learning to

spell?

6. Does your child have difficulty speaking in front of the class?

7. Can your child give you a meaningful account of the events of the

school day?

I do know that Dr. Tallal said that even though Fast ForWord doesn't

work " directly " on improving speech - that seems to happen

automatically anyway with the children who use Fast ForWord for

language for some reason. There is an online test you can take at

her website at

http://www.brainconnection.com/teasers/?main=rr/pquestion

(there is one for teachers too) Or you can go to

the main pages of her website's at http://www.scientificlearning.com and

http://www.brainconnection.com to get more info on language learning

impairments.

Going ahead I'm sure we will all explore and learn more in this area

with Dr. a Tallal!

=====

May 26, 2004

You are lucky! Go for it with Fast For Word!

Dr. Tallal who is the co creator of Fast For Word is one of the

advisors to CHERAB and Speechville, who wrote the forward for our

book The Late Talker. Dr. Tallal has been an amazing support source

to us as a group in helping us find speakers for others pro bono so

we don't have to charge much (or at all) for conferences -and to

some of our members like http://www.cherab.org/news/.html

who she is assisting pro bono with her colleagues Dr. Burns and

others.

Here are some archived quotes from Dr. Tallal:

" Please just continue to pass along the positive news (and website

www.scientificlearning.com) about the potential that Fast ForWord

has to help the many children with speech/language/literacy

problems -- whenever it seems appropriate to suggest that a parent

or school may want to investigate whether it would help their

children. The vast majority of the children who have been helped by

FFWD to date have found out about our neuroscience-based programs

through word of mouth from other parents, teachers or

superintendents who had used them and passed on the positive results

they have experienced to others, as well as from websites or books

like yours. "

" We have new genetic evidence of linkage in families of children

with SLI to chromosome 13q21, a region that has also been

implicated in autism, especially those individuals with autism

that have the most severe language disorders. We also have superb

data as well as clinical report that Fast ForWord can be extremely

valuable in helping children with autism (as well as those with

apraxia or other forms of language impairment as you know) improve

rapidly in their language abilities. Of course I would be happy to

have any opportunity of getting this valuable information to

parents and therapists who are concerned about how best to

stimulate language development in individuals with autism.

And, as the Wall Street Journal article reported on Oct 11th, we

can now validate the efficacy of Fast ForWord for improving reading

ability at the single word level, decoding and passage

comprehension, both with behavioral test results as well as with

changes in brain activation observed using fMRI. These are truely

revolutionary findings !! These new data out of Stanford University

prove that Fast ForWord is indeed changing the brain's ability to

attend and process more efficiently, and in so doing significantly

improving both oral and written language abilities.

So, just let me know what opportunities might come up. "

" Fast ForWord is now a whole series of programs designed to work on the many

foundational skills that both cognitive and neuroscience research has shown to

be essential for both oral and written language development. All of our programs

are unique as they adapt trial- by -trial to each individual's needs, providing

highly individualized training. Scientific Learning now has one or more

programs that are appropriate for preschoolers through adults.

The Fast ForWord family of training programs begins with a program called Fast

ForWord-Basics, which is appropriate for typically developing preschool age

children, as well as for children struggling with speech, language learning

and/or reading readiness skills. Fast ForWord-Basics can be purchased directly

by parents and provided without the need of a certified professional on a home

computer. Fast ForWord-Basics is also used by professionals to help preschool

age children as well as older children with severe language learning

impairments to learn the basic skills needed to be able to be successful with

the higher- level Fast ForWord training programs.

Fast ForWord-Basics is even more effective when used in combination with the

Scientific Learning Bookshelf. This is a series of story books that has been

specially designed to help children hear the most confusing sounds within

English, in the context of fun to listen to children's stories. The Bookshelf

comes in a parent's version as well as a professional version. Only the

professional version presents the stories with our patented " acoustically

modified speech " .

Fast ForWord training programs use " acoustically modified speech " . This is

speech that has been computer modified to exaggerate and enhance the brief,

critical acoustic events that differentiates one speech sound from another .

Over 30 years of research have shown that many children struggling with speech,

language and reading skills have great difficulty distinguishing the brief

acoustic events within speech. Fast ForWord programs are the only programs

designed to explicitly address this difficult aspect of speech, while at the

same time " cross-training " the many other foundational skills necessary for

proficient speech, language and reading acquisition. That is why the Fast

ForWord training programs have often been referred to as " glasses for the ears " .

The goal of Fast ForWord training is to individually adapt the training for

each participant. In this way each individual will be able to rely less and

less on this acoustically modified speech as training progresses. The goal is

to end up with the ability to complete increasing more difficult exercises with

normal speech.

Fast ForWord-Language is the program most people refer to when they talk about

Fast ForWord training, as it was our original training program. This program has

been used successfully now with nearly 150,000 children and has been shown to be

extremely effective in improving various components of speech and language

skills, which are fundamental building blocks for reading. Fast ForWord-

Language is appropriate for children 5 years and older. There is a special

version of Fast ForWord- Language developed for older children and adults, which

is called Fast ForWord- Middle and High School.

Once individuals have completed Fast ForWord- Language, they can progress on to

the next level program called Fast ForWord- Language to Reading. This program

has been explicitly designed to train the fundamental skills needed to learn to

connect oral sounds with written symbols, in increasingly complex contexts,

beginning with single sound/letter correspondence and culminating with

comprehending connected stories.

The newest Fast ForWord training program is called Fast ForWord-Reading. This

program has been designed by reading experts who have focused on the many

essential aspects of reading that are included on many of the state-wide

reading achievement tests.

In addition to this now broad series of training programs, Scientific Learning

also offers a computerized individual reading assessment program called Reading

Edge. Using this simple to administer assessment, which seems like a computer

game to the child, a parent or professional can rapidly assess an individuals

current reading skills. The program gives immediate feedback as to what level

an individual is at in terms of their readiness for reading.

Further information about all of these programs as well as the research behind

them can be found on the Scientific Learning Corp website

www.scientificlearning.com. You can also find a list of professional Fast

ForWord providers on this site, as well as information as to how to have your

child's school acquire the Fast ForWord training programs. "

--

a Tallal, Ph.D

Board of Governor's Professor of Neuroscience

Co-Director Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience

Rutgers University

197 University Ave

Newark, NJ 07102

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