Calvin and Emma have now been doing Fast ForWord for 30 sessions. So, the equivalent of 6 weeks.
Change #1: Late last night, Calvin finished reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, his first true chapter book.
Change #2: Emma seems to be experimenting with her vocal levels. She’s been talking very quietly these days. It’s like this: you know when you have a sinus infection and everything in your head is stuffed including your ears and you don’t know how loud to talk because you can’t hear yourself? That’s what she sounds like. I think she’s hearing herself differently and so is experimenting with volumes because she’s wondering if she sounds as loud to other people as she suddenly sounds to herself.
I’m going to check with the experts and report back, but I’m kind of excited to see these changes so I wanted to share them with the world.
Progress!
Any other Fast ForWord parents out there that observed changes in their children?
Update: Talked with The Expert and she sees changes like those I’ve described all the time. From my perspective though (and I’m sure the world at large) it’s a hard connection to prove. It’s anecdotal and not statistical. We had the same experience actually when doing Tomatis Auditory Therapy. Suddenly, we went through a “Why?” phase with Emma, when we hadn’t had a “Why?” phase at the normal 2-4 years of age. Plus, suddenly my husband and I couldn’t have conversations without her picking up bits of information. I hadn’t realized that we’d been able to discuss pretty much anything in her presence (like Christmas presents, opinions about other parents (not you, of course), disagreements with the school) and she would be oblivious to them. But after the Tomatis therapy she would be saying things like “What did you just say about Christmas?”
It will be interesting to see if others see changes. Maybe I won’t inform her teacher that she did Fast ForWord at all, and see if she notices anything different.
Tentative Equinox North
Tentative Equinox 
I have twin boys with ADHD and LD, age 7. They both completed Fast forword Language over the summer holidays (Janunuary here in Australia). I then went on to do language to reading at home with them. One boy, with far less severe LD completed that in a normal time frame, the other went on and on for 6 months. He plateaued at about 60% for months and so eventually I stopped. He is also ODD so everything is a fight. He has speech difficulties too and so I have just ordered the listening therapy CDs based on Tomatis. Is this what you did for your daughter? Did she listen to the CDs? Did you find it made a difference?
AS far as Fastforword, I am not sure if it helped or not. The teachers did notice a difference when they returned to school, they thought their reading had improved. We also started Ritalin at the same time and I must say that has made an amazing difference.
I will be interested to see how your children do with Fastforword…..
We did notice changes from Fast ForWord — big ones. I will do a posting in the next week about what they were, I promise!
My son, also had a hard time finishing Fast ForWord Learning. I think, in general, boys have a harder time getting through it. Our provider did indicate that once it’s clear the child has lost interest in the program, or is just plain bored, there’s no gains that will made that are big enough to warrant continuing to make a big issue of it. It actually may be an indication to move on to the next more challenging module.
For Tomatis, we went to a clinic for the therapy. It didn’t have a huge impact, except we did notice that she was better able to pick up on conversations around her. She also went through a “Why?” phase that had never happened when she was 3. So, we thought it might indicate she was generally a little better able to tune into the world around her.
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