Neuron Learning

Good Feedback

A nice article from the blog A Day in the Life of a Teacher

Reading Strategies being used in Kansas Schools

The past couple of summers, I have had the opportunity to work at Smoky Hill Education Service Center (SHESC) in Salina, Kansas. While working there I have been introduced to two different Reading programs that have become very popular around Kansas and the United States. One program is called Fast ForWord. It is a computer simulation that retrains the brain how to read and comprehend what has been read. I can say first-hand that this program works. During my time working at SHESC, I spent time coaching students of different ages and learning styles. My most successful story was an Autistic boy that was going into 7th grade when I first started working with him. When starting, he could not comprehend information that he read to save his life. After working with him on this program for the past three summers, he is now reading at his grade level and comprehends what he read with great detail. Not only have I seen an indescribable change in him but I have seen one in myself as well. I was “diagnosed” with a reading comprehension problem in the 5th grade and did not know what to do. My parents tried every strategy they could to get me to read better and comprehend faster. Nothing seemed to work, until my father found out about Fast ForWord and made me go through it. I was not successful at first but then when I got the job at SHESC and was forced to become familiar with the program, I was blown away at how well it works. In order to get the full picture, you must go to the website and check it out. It is sweeping the nation and I am sure you will be in a school someday that will have it (at least that is my dad’s goal). Anyway, the website is:

www.neuronlearning.eu / www.scilearn.com

I encourage everyone to look at what this program can do for your students and urge your school to get it implemented into the school. It is not only successful for special education students but gifted and in-between as well. If you would like even more information about it, reply to my blog and I will give you as much information as I can. If I can’t answer your questions, then I will connect you with someone who can

Reading and the Asperger Child

Here in an article published in Bill Goodyear's very useful newsletter. Bill provides a Coaching Asperger service. I hope that you find it useful

See Bill's site click here

John

A child with Asperger’s Syndrome may often have challenges in his or her oral and written comprehension. He or she may appear to read well however the understanding is weak because he misses the nuances, inferences and other critical aspects of comprehension. Ambiguity, weak language vocabulary, poor language structure and pragmatics may also cause confusion. For a significant proportion of Asperger children cognitive weaknesses such as a poor working memory, lack of attention and auditory processing skills can prevent the mastery of language and reading.

These weaknesses may hide his true strengths and prevent him from meeting his potential. Instead of being challenged at school he may have a frustrating experience and perhaps develop a sense of alienation from academic work. Equally when his receptive language is weak he can have problems in the classroom and socially. Somehow he doesn’t get the flow of the conversations and can feel excluded. This may lead to poor self-esteem, social exclusion and a lack of motivation.

However his language and reading skills can be improved. An individual education plan should be put together that clearly identifies his needs. There are now products and teaching methods that can effectively deal with his priorities. Comprehension skills can be developed. Cognitive skills can be improved. You may need to supplement the existing academic curriculum to ensure that your child meets his potential.

There are several intervention steps you should take into account

An initial assessment is essential that identifies his needs and this should be followed by the creation of a personalised programme to address the priority areas.
Consider using a computer based training programme which allows a sense of control, privacy and which includes a lot of stimulation and motivation.
Also ensure that the training is personal so that he can feel secure that only his tutor and himself know the results and the errors.
Finally the programme should be designed to assist him or her in fundamental language skills right through high level comprehension exercises.

Children can be taught to improve their skills in much the same way as they acquire another skill such as playing a musical instrument. The language and reading work should include exercises designed to build attention span to comprehension strategies, language pragmatics, verbal reasoning and vocabulary development. There must be a focus on the reduction of ambiguity, coping with figures of speech, improving listening skills, dealing with abstractions, imprecise expressions and so on.

At the end of the course the student should be significantly better in his reading and language skills. His self-confidence will grow as he becomes more proficient in his comprehension and more fluent in his reading. He should be sharper and more alert in conversations. The improvement of receptive skills may also lead to the improvement of his or her expressive language. He will be more able to get to the point and express himself in a precise and concise way. Reading is the gateway to learning and is a fundamental skill that will help your child reach their full potential.

John Kerins is a director of Neuron Learning Ltd. They provide the Fast ForWord products for language, reading and learning skill development. He can be contacted on 0207 100 9293 or by email [email protected] For more information see www.neuron-learning.co.uk

Autism & Surfing !

Born with a rare syndrome that left him profoundly autistic, seven-year-old Luke was trapped in his own body. But then his dad took him surfing. By Paul Solotaroff.

From The Oberver Magazine a very heart rendering, inspriring and useful story. Click here to view

Autistic Girl - Feedback from a teacher

We received this email today from a teacher who is reviewing our products for her own use.

"Spoke to the mum of an autistic girl who is studying with James. Here is the imperical evidence that this system works:

The child now maintains eye contact with people she meets
she mingles with her peers in school
she constructs complex sentences and can string them together
her power of reasoning has improved amazingly
she is engaging with the phonics programme in school
not surprisingly her self confidence has gone through the roof.
her powers of concentration have been greatly enhanced."

Nice feedback and great to see such improvements. The child is now in her third month with us.

Asperger's New EZine

Specialist Monthly Asperger’s Syndrome eZine

Here is a message from Bill Goodyear about his new eZine to be launched on the 6th August.

"I am writing to you as I believe that you will be interested in our new publication The Spectrum, which is a unique specialist e zine concerned with all the latest news, practice, legislation experience and issues concerning Asperger’s Syndrome across the world. "

Autism Article in Time Magazine

Time in its June 13, 2006 European edition ran a very interesting article on autism.

As usual the indepth reporting analysis is terrific. This is what one reader had to say about it.

" I have been researching and teaching about autism for more than 30 years, and I believe that your article is one of the most accurate and useful to appear in the popular press."

Mike Merzenich one of the founders of Scientific Learning and who is very respected in field of autism research was quoted in the article.

It is well worth looking the article up on the Time magazine site