Susan Barton said it took her $100,000.00 of her own money to develop the app. Apple keeps 30% of sales. At this rate she would have to sell 4762 apps in order to break even....well maybe come close to breaking even...she probably has attorney fees and who knows what other fees went in to it. It is also 100% geared towards Barton. From what I've read, I can't imagine someone who isn't using Barton purchasing it. Thus, the customer base is severely limited (Barton users only). I empathize with you. The financial burden of dyslexia is huge. I would love to purchase the app, but first I need an Ipad. Every direction I look is $$$$$.

We have done Interactive Metronome twice with two different providers. I found myself in a similar position as you. Our VERY experienced provider was 6 hours away and our local provider had about 2 years of experience. For our second round of IM we used the closer provider and it helped, but after reviewing his final scores with the other provider I found she would have pushed him even further. Our situation was different in that our providers were out of two different practices and did not work together....if the more experienced IM therapist could have imparted her knowledge (via phone/email) during the sessions we most certainly would have had even more success. If my experienced provider lived only an hour away we would have hands down made the drive to her. She really is quite exceptional and has put many, many children through the program. Unfortunately, 6 hours would have required a temporary move. Depending on the experience level, I lean towards using the experienced OT. Given the time and effort of IM, I would want to get the absolute most out of it. You will already be setting aside a chunk of your day and it is for a short period of time. It is also a lot of work for the child....why not give him the best teacher. Assuming you home school this is the perfect time to cut back on school work. Has the inexperienced OT gone through the IM training? I would express your concerns with the experienced IM provider and confirm that he/she is VERY comfortable with your child seeing the inexperienced provider. Ask if you could switch providers part way through if the expected progress is not on track. The great thing about IM is that progress IS measured. Find out where your son is expected to be at during and the end of the program. Yes, every child does progress at different rates, but certainly the experienced OT will have some idea of the expected progress. This way if your son is far off, you can look at whether it is just his normal progression or the OT's lack of experience.

Yes, I've been wondering about why there is so little EPA/DHA in it. I wish I would have realized this when I was with the neurologist and asked him. There is a difference between taking Vayarin and taking Omega3 and Phosphatidylserine separately. In Vayarin the Omegas and Phosphatidylserine are bonded together in one molecule. From what I understand this is what helps transport the Omegas directly to the brain. If you take them separately they remain different molecules. This is what separates Vayarin from a supplement....we can't get Vayarin from eating food. This chemical bonding is one reason I can think of that might justify having less Omegas. When you take just a regular Omega supplement it gets transported all over the body....some can go to the heart and else where with just a portion going to the brain. Maybe since this goes directly to the brain less Omega is needed??? I have no data to back this....it is just a thought that I've been pondering.

Our neurologist has recommended this for my son. He said it may help with his processing issues and memory problems. Just curious if anyone else has used it and where *specifically* have you seen progress, if any? Thanks!

This leads in exactly to what I always tell my husband. It takes a team of individuals to properly diagnose these complex LDs and wouldn't it be nice if there was some communication between them!! For a 100% complete evaluation of APD I think we need an SLP, OT, audiologist and psychologist. OhElizabeth, just to clarify I’m only a parent and don’t have any authority on this subject. I’m still trying to determine whether my son has ADD in addition to APD. I can forward Dr. Jay’s email address to you. He seemed very open to responding to emails. Not sure if you have heard about him, but he has been working with APD for over 30 years. I've always heard age 7 is the magic testing age for APD . My son was tested at 7. I suspected APD even earlier and he certainly showed clear signs prior to age 7. Dr. Jay referred to working with children as young as 5 (this was in the context of research studies). Dr. Maxine Young, audiologist that moderates an APD yahoo group, says that there are APD tests with normative data for kids as young as 4.5. The ACPT test is really just a screening. The test itself doesn’t take very long (10 minutes)…it is just one of the many tests that are performed during the testing. Again, it is just a screening and that is why I think you need a good audiologist who can look at information from parents/teachers and the results of the other tests to help you determine if further testing for ADD is necessary. I’ve read that some kids have passed the ACPT test and still have ADD and that some young children can fail the test, but not have ADD…helpful right?! Again I think it takes a good Dr to look at everything on a case-by-case basis. My son is one of the latter. He failed the ACPT test, but I’m not convinced that he has ADD. Unfortunately, our audiologist was one that can administer a test but not help with the interpretation. Sighhh. Our audiologist experience is what I have heard from other parents and an area that Dr. Jay also touched on. Finding the right doctor/therapist for my son has been one of the most frustrating parts of this journey. Now, I generally interview the therapists/Drs that I work with. A couple of quick questions with our audiologist would have told me she doesn’t have much experience with APD. I ask questions such as, “How do you test for this?†“How do you distinguish this from this?†“How many kids have you worked with that have this condition?†“How do you generally treat this?†and the most revealing question “Why, do you recommend this treatment?â€

Yes, much of this is what Dr Jay Lucker discussed at the workshop I attended. Dr. Jay couldn't stress enough that if we leave with knowing only one thing it is that APD is not singular auditory processing disorder. It is auditory processing disorders (plural). Which reaffirmed what I heard in another workshop with a psychologist that presented on APD. She had indicated that of all the clients she has tested with APD, no two looked alike.

I recently attended an APD teacher workshop presented by Dr. Jay Lucker. He also indicated how difficult it is to distinguish ADD from APD attention problems. He did give an example situation to help us understand the difference. A child is sitting in class listening to the teacher and some kids start playing outside. The child with APD attention problems will change focus to the children outside, but will revert focus back to the teacher. The competing outside sound will make it difficult to "hear" the teacher. This child will have got about 50% of what the teacher discussed. On the other hand, the child with ADD will change focus to the children outside and never revert back to the teacher. The ADD child will have got 0% of what the teacher discussed. I know this is a simple example, but it provides some ideas. I don't believe it is possible via a forum to rule one out over the other...even the professionals have difficulty. If you decide to see an audiologist, I would find an audiologist VERY experienced in dealing with APD. Don't just find an audiologist who can test for it, but someone who can INTERPRET the results. So many will say they can perform an APD evaluation, but they don't know how to interpret the scores. Performing the evaluation is the easy part (we could do it with a couple of hours of instruction). Unfortunately, this is all too common and in the end you will have scores, some canned printout of what to do next and lots of confusion. The APD tests will include an Auditory Continuous Performance Test. This is a screening test for ADD. A good audiologist will know enough about ADD and can interpret your results enough to refer you to a psych for further ADD testing if necessary. BTW: There are different types of APD and it is really important to determine what type of APD (if any) your daugher has. Just saying a child has APD is not enough to determine what issues the child has and more importantly how to treat.

I second the post about looking into the signs of dyslexia. Since you feel in your mommy gut that something else is going on with reading at least be aware of the specific dyslexia signs. Susan Barton has a great video on her website about the signs of dyslexia. You can also call her and she will answer any questions you have. Also do some research on the signs of Auditory Processing Disorders/Central Auditory Processing Disorders (CAPD). An audiologist (who has experience with CAPD) can evaluate for CAPD. As someone else mentioned call for the appt now. It took us 4 months to get into our local audiologist. I would also find out the CAPD experience level of the audiologist. Our local audiologist performed the CAPD tests for us, but after just a few questions I found that she really wasn't that experienced. A good SLP can help as well.

Yes, we also used Interactive Metronome and had success. Although, I'm not sure that we got any success in motor planning and my son also has motor planning issues. I saw success in word retrieval, focus and he just seemed much more with it during school work. We used it two different times and both times I saw similar gains. I'm happy to report it has been a couple of months and he hasn't lost it. In fact, he continues to improve with his attentiveness. The one practitioner who has been using IM for a while now (she has used it on 100s of kids) says that we should see more improvements over the next several months. IM was covered 90% with my insurance when we did it through an in network OT. It was one of our cheaper therapies. Again, I don’t know what kind of motor planning benefits my son received from it, if any. However, we did absolutely see success in other areas. Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a one glove fits all method to this madness of choosing the right therapies?!

We had a year of vision therapy covered through United Healthcare. We also got a gap exception.

Thank you for this link! I'm going to have my husband make one. Of course, we just got rid of some crutches laying around....arghhh. I've aways had problems with my son's posture. My OT suggested a therapy ball, but I think this might work better.

We have Brain Safari and I know that it incoroporates some sort of timing and tapping. I haven't looked at it in a year so not sure how much focus is on it. I know when we did IM we had to do it at least 3 times a week for about 50 minutes each time. Both our providers stressed that this was necessary to achieve the brain rewiring. This seems to be the case for most neuro work that I read about. Frequency, intensity and repetition seem to be key.

Interesting...there is a clinical study under way that is looking at Strattera and its affects on reading in children wih Dyslexia. http://dyslexia.yale...rchStudy08.html

Both providers we saw for IM charged per session and the number of sessions depended on the severity of the client. Our first IM provider charged $95 per session. She is an SLP and this is her standard in-office rate regardless of what she is doing. The second IM round was through and OT and her in-network rate was $77.00 per session. Our insurance covered most of this because she is in network. It took us 22 sessions for my son to perform in the normal range for most of the IM activities with the OT. He was considered in the severe range. We sent the scores to our SLP (who is out of state....the reason we didn't use her). She is preparing us to do the program at home when he has better endurance. She thinks he can make even more gains if he can get his reps increased. If you can do it with a provider I would highly recommend it. They will probably have a better time motivating your child. I'm dreading the home program.

Awww, certainly more food for thought. A VT told us my son does have retained primitive reflexes. We worked on them for a year and made no progress (my son simply stalled at that pigeon walk, nothing we did would get him to master it). After a year, I felt we gave as good as we could and I tried a different VT. Anyway, sounds like your therapist would never have even recommended TLP for my son.

PROMPT and LiPS are two VERY different programs. PROMPT uses tactile input/cues to facilitate production of sounds. Using these cues the therapist can guide the child to produce the sounds. LiPS helps the student distinguish speech sounds by exploring the oral movements they use to produce the sounds. So with PROMPT you are helping a child produce sounds whereas LiPS is helping a child differentiate the speech sounds they can already produce.

I wonder if they used the FFW Reading program with these studies?? We did not use this part of FFW and my son's SLP is not at all impressed with it. It is really hard to determine the validity of these studies since this link does't give much details. If the students only used the Language portion of FFW then I honestly don't know how their reading scores would improve. Really, from our experience it only worked on some very specific pre-reading skills. FFW Language is NOT a reading instruction program. So, unless the tests targeted those pre-reading skills addressed in the FFW Language series, they would not be an accurate reflection of skills learned. Now, if they used the FFW Reading series I can't comment, since we have not been through it.

My son has CAPD and we tried The Listening Program and saw no results. I recently read somewhere that The Listening Program is most effective with folks who have SPD affecting the auditory. It is not effective with folks who have CAPD. Apparently, CAPD and SPD can cause similar symptoms and it is important to determine which is the predominant cause of the auditory problems. I honestly don't know if this is correct, but found it interestng since my son does have CAPD and we did not have success with the Listening Program or other sensory related therapies we have tried.

:iagree: Our provider used it the same way. We only used the portion that helps with sound discrimination. Our SLP does not like the later levels of FFW and we never used them. The 8-10 weeks we did with FFW did not get my son reading. It helped him to process/hear the individual sounds so that we could teach him to read. I can remember our SLP holding off on some phonics instruction until he completed FFW. She said after FFW he would be able to "hear" the sounds and we could continue with phonics instruction. Mukmuk, I would love to compare notes with you more on what has worked and not worked...sounds like our kids may be similar.

We finished FFW about 4 months ago. It was used as part of a comprehensive processing program we did with our SLP. It really helped my son with discriminating the individual phonemes within words. Others, here, have mentioned that some kids can be frusterated with the program. Our SLP's methods seem to validate this. She had us go through about 3-4 months of therapy before she would even start my son on FFW. She said that he had to "prove" to her he was ready for FFW before she would begin it. There is a yahoo group (AuditoryProcessing) moderated by an audiologist who is a big proponent of FFW. I've also seen posts from other FFW providers on the list. They can probably help you determine whether your son fits the profile of a good candidate. Good luck. I sure do wish there was a one size fits all fix! I spoke with several providers to try and determine its efficacy for my son. It is pricey and time consuming but, for us it was worth every penny.

Hmmmm, I think I need to clarify what I wrote (thanks LizzyBee) :001_smile:. I'm not wholeheartedly suggesting FastForward is the path to take to prepare a child for Barton. I think FFW is great, but I honestly don't know if it alone will get a child where he needs to be for Barton. We did lots of other activities with our SLP (literaly 3 hours a day, 5 days a week for about 6 months). At the time, my thoughts were to use FFW for my DS (who I know has CAPD and language processing deficits) and then on to LiPS. In the beginning it was never a one or the other activity. LiPS is the "tried and true" method that Barton recommends. I really hope I'm not causing any confusion. I've learned so much from all of these groups. You ladies are fantastic.

I believe you can get Earobics for around $100. FastForward is used under the direction of an SLP or some other therapist and is quite a bit more costly. A 1 year license from the company costs $800. In addition you need to pay the therapist to oversee your use of the product. This cost is set by the therapist and I've heard it can be anywhere from $200 up to around $2000. The prices I found were closer to the higher end. I thought FastForward had some good studies backing it up. It even had some fMRI scans, before and after, that showed neuro changes. However, in all honesty, I really didn't read the studies in detail. I do know that a couple of audiologists and a couple SLPs that specialize in CAPD recommended it to me. They were all supporters of it. The heart of FastForward, their Language series (or what I believe is the heart of it), does NOT teach your child to read. It is geared toward training the ears to process sounds more rapidly as well as helping auditory memory, focus... I know there was some misunderstanding about this at one of the Lindamood Bell centers I was at. Anyway, for my ds, FFW improved his auditory memory and gave him the ability to hear the individual phonemes that he was not hearing before. This combined with his SLP exercises was what he needed to pass Task C and he was very successful with Barton Level 1. I would recommend that you do NOT take the LiPS 1-day workshop. You can better spend your money purchasing some of the training videos. The 1-day workshop is really more of an overview. IMHO, the best part of the 3-day LiPS workshop is the time spent practicing with a partner. Since there is so much material, they cut a lot of that out in the 1 day. This is what our trainer told us during the 3-day workshop. When I attended the workshop we were given the LiPS manual, mouth picture cards and letter cards. I believe this is all you need to complete the program enough to begin Barton?? They also gave us a 15% discount on all their products if you attend the workshop. Just something to keep in mind if you plan to attend a workshop.

My DS did not pass it either (about a year ago). Actually, he bombed all tasks, expecially Task C. We used FastForward along with some other auditory therapy exercises created by our SLP. FastForward was the main therapy we used for his auditory processing issues. I then retested my son and he passed. In fact he just zoomed through the first Barton level in 2 weeks. You can check to see if any SLPs in your area are trained in LiPS. If not, you can get trained to use LiPS. I went through the three day training and it was excellent. Thr program is doable at home and the book is scripted (much like Barton). I never did use LiPS since FastForward was the ticket for my DS. Well, I take that back I used LiPS on the 'f' and 'th' sounds since my son still struggles to hear the difference between them. Have you had your son tested for CAPD? Maybe FastForward would be beneficial....

Hi All - My son completed Fast Forward for his CAPD. I'm thinking of giving Earobics a try and just wondering if anyone has had success with Earobics after they have already done FFW? He made great progress with FFW especially his ability to rapidly hear the individual sounds. I'm still seeing some difficulty with distinguishing 'th' and 'f' sounds and a couple of others. He also has trouble with classroom environments and understanding what the teacher is saying. Thanks! - Leslie

We did FFW, Interactive Metronome, The Listening Program and LOTS of exercises developed by our SLP. FFW: We saw great jumps in phonemic awareness and auditory memory. Interactive Metronome: Did two rounds of this and saw jumps in word retrieval, focus and I think maybe memory. The Listening Progam and Samonas: I did not see any improvement with these. I've since heard that The Listening Program and other listening therapy may work better with those folks that have auditory issues due to sensory problems and not true CAPD? Not sure how accurate this is(or even understand it), but it would explain why we never saw success with these. My son certainly has CAPD. We have spent the last 8 months doing an intensive at home program developed by our SLP to work my sons visiual processing, CAPD and motor processing skills. I now have a child that I can teach (he really was an unteachable child a year ago). So, for now, I'm going to use all my acquired knowledge and just pour academics in to him. So, we are done with remediation for the short term. I guess I should say we are done with professional remediation. My son still has APD and areas I want worked on, but I have all kinds of tools now to use with him on my own and they are enough to keep us pretty busy. :)