has anyone been successful with fastforward program?

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Sun, Jun 16 2024, 11:46 pm

seeker wrote:

OK I'm still short on time but hope to help, if there's a question I missed then let me know!

Cost:
- Some depts of ed pay for FFW, but not many, and I have not heard of any funding source in NY or NJ.
- OP's school offering to subsidize is about as good as it gets and may make it worth a try (how much are they asking?)
- Some SLPs use it in their practice, and while many bill the parents separately, you may be able to find one who includes it and is covered by insurance. You'd want to look up the provider directory on FFW website and look for someone with SLP in their title, and then you can ask them if their services are covered.
- $5000 is obscene; I have seen a range of pricing but that's way out. It does sound like you got set up with the wrong kind of provider... and the fee is not even the biggest issue with that exchange. Ugh. Anyway, a more typical price range would be somewhere around $1500, and it can vary depending what you want to get out of it (there are different program components...)

Doing it at home:
- Yes, you can do it at home yourself, but you WILL need access to a provider to coach you through any questions. You can't help your kid properly when you don't know the ins and outs of the program and software. It's not usually complicated for the user but people do tend to need support at various times and it would not make sense to start on the program without being able to reach out for help.
- Yes, an optimal schedule would be at least 30 minutes x 5 days a week. Yes, that's a lot. That's why you only do this program if you are dead serious about the issues you want to work on. It's not the kind of thing you can dabble in just in case it makes you a little better.
- No, she wouldn't need to do it completely independently for all that time, but if she can't do it independently then you would have to do some of it with her, and I doubt you would prefer that Twisted Evil

HearBuilder:
I have heard great things about this program too, though I haven't used it personally (you might also look into Earobics, I don't know if it's still around but back in the day I really liked it). FFW takes a different approach, though. FFW is the *only* program that uses technology to manipulate the speech sounds in a way that trains the brain to literally hear them differently. It also includes exercises that are more similar to regular programs, so you get the full package, but the other programs do not have those modified sound components that make FFW so powerful. No time to go into detail right now but if you want to call or skype me sometime I can try to explain better.

Research:
I read about a bajillion pages of studies from various sources before becoming a provider. I found that aggregate data saying that FFW is ineffective is itself flawed. They combine data from different studies on different populations with different goals... kind of silly. Then there was the study that said "Students using FFW did not make any more gains than the control group of students receiving 2 hours of speech-language therapy weekly" - OK then, good luck getting your kid 2 hours of SLP weekly. And the study that took results after 6 weeks - did you even read the directions, FFW is not a 6-week program! Most providers won't even take a student for less than a 3-month commitment.

Dyslexia/dysgraphia:
Thank you, you have just motivated me to do some research on dysgraphia. I actually do not know if there is any relationship here.
For dyslexia - DEFINITELY, this is the #1 population that FFW helps. It provides a triple-whammy of the auditory processing, phonetic awareness and phonics, and language skills.

Hope that helped. I seriously need to get some laundry out of the dryer and get to bed.

Can you provide a link where I can find a fastforward provider?