My daughter is 11 years old and in 5th grade. She was identified LD at the end of 2nd grade because she couldn’t read. They also discovered she had a Language Problem which I didn’t understand and no one told me about!! Anyway, I taught her to read using Reading Reflex and she was on grade level within 8 months. I thought that was it! Wrong.
While she did okay in third grade, it was during 4th grade I saw her slowly falling behind in everything. Yes she could read, but she had all of the deficits a child with a language learning problems has – comprehending, processing, focusing, speaking and writing correctly. This is a very bright girl we’re talking about. I was at my wits end. I started taking her to a private SLP last summer, but I also heard about Audiblox and decided to try that since it does have something for children with a language problem.
We started the last week of August 2000. I tried working 5 days a week for 30 minutes but she had too much homework (she also plays the violin and needs to practice), so we cut back to 4 days a week for 30 minutes. She listened to her tape 6-7 days a week. It was really slow going at first. It’s hard to work with your own child. They know just which buttons to push! Anyway, after Christmas break I started noticing an improvement in her speaking. She was speaking up more when we had company or were over at someone else’s house. She always used to act like a mute. Other people started noticing too. Her principal even came up to me to comment on how well Katelyn has been doing this year – and this man has never talked to me!! (I really wonder what they talk about when they’re talking about your child?) She has been on grade level all year – she hasn’t been falling behind. We live in the United States and our school district administers the Metropolitan Achievement Test every spring for grades 2-8. We just got her results last Friday. Last year she was below average for all subjects. This year her scores placed her in the average range for everything but science – but her class didn’t have a lot of science this year. Her basic score doubled from last year! In other words she did twice as well this year as last year. The only thing I’ve been doing differently this year is Audiblox.
We will continue Audiblox three days a week for an hour a day through the summer and then cut down to probably three days a week for thirty minutes when school starts. She starts Middle School this fall so I’m anticipating a lot of homework and I don’t want her bogged down.
Does she like doing Audiblox? Absolutely not! Most of the time it is because she has had school all day and she doesn’t want to do it, but once we get started (somedays it’s like pulling teeth) she does fine most of the time. There are days we probably shouldn’t have even tried.
Has she noticed a difference in her school work? Yes. She has really noticed a difference in being able to talk to people and knowing what to say. She still has a long way to go there, but then we all have times when we stumble over our words. It’s just a lot harder for her. I don’t think I can spell check this so I hope nothing is spelled incorrectly.
I especially want to thank Susan and Benetta for being there for me and answering my questions and guiding me through all of this. I am so thankful I found this for my daughter.
I almost forgot to mention that my daughter has done so well this year she no longer qualifies as an LD student. She still qualifies as needing Speech Services.
Update, 4 June 2001:
Hi! I just thought I would add something to my post. My daughter had a year-end test over everything they had studied in math in 5th grade. She brought her book home to study, but after I saw how much the test covered, I told her to just do her best. I was afraid if we started studying she would start getting things mixed up – I know I would. Anyway, she scored an 80% on her test!! Absolutely amazing. She did better than a lot of the other “regular” students in her classroom. I know that if we hadn’t been doing Audiblox this past year, she would not have scored as high as she did. In fact, she probably would have failed. Her memory has really increased and I see it in other aspects of every day life.
Pat Kuehn
USA
Pat Kuehn Parent, USA
