Archive for March, 2010

From a parent after a short time of his son being on the Little Giant Steps (LGS) Neuro-Educational Program:

Our son, CK, just started Little Giant Steps.  We have been working his program as diligently as possible.  I wanted to tell you about a “little giant step” I experienced last night.  I have never seen him cry because he was genuinely sad.  I have only seed him cry when he was angry, had been disciplined, or did not get his way.  Last night I saw him cry a different “cry”.  It was not the out of control hysterical cry I am used to, but a quiet, sad cry because he was upset about something.

His little brother let our dog  have one of CK’s stuffed animals (a monkey).  The dog bit off the hands and ears. Instead of first getting furious and mad at his brother (normal reaction), CK came to me crying about what had happened to his monkey.  He was upset and very sad for his poor monkey (it was not a human, but at least he showed compassion for something) and CK wanted to be held and consoled by me.  Besides when he has been  ill, it is the first time I can ever remember him acting or feeling “tender”.   I felt like crying myself.  God Bless LGS and the work you all are doing.  What a motivation I experienced to keep moving onward!   ~   CK’s Dad

We just had to share this note from a client whose son has been on the LGS Neuro-Educational Program.  There are benefits far beyond academics:

“Please tell Jan that Thomas has turned a corner in the past two weeks.  His emotional swings are less and his outlook on life is bright.  He’s cleaned his room nicely without being reminded a zillion times, and his “maturity” level has increased — even his teenage sister is complimenting him and commenting on his changes.  We are so encouraged.”  Blessings to you all — S.

A note from one of Little Giant Steps (LGS) Neuro-Educational Specialists:

Yesterday, I saw a remarkable young man at my office in McKinney, TX.  He is a fine godly young man of thirteen and tests for his red belt in tae kwan do in a couple of weeks.  With the same discipline he has trained himself for his sport, he has disciplined himself to work an LGS program for four months and boosted his reading comprehension score from 7.5 to 12.8, a total of five years and three months improvement!  The guy must be brilliant because he was able to make these amazing gains with poor detail vision.  He and his mother have been very frustrated with schoolwork because he simply cannot see details well enough to catch those careless errors in math.  The main focus of his next program will be to help his eyes work better and to build up his self esteem.  Go for it, guy, you have what it takes to succeed!

Reading At Last

The Neuro-Educational Program has many success stories, here’s an account from a mother who’s son has been on the Little Giant Steps Program:

Last week was a good day, a really good day. We’ve been reading so slow for so long that it startled me one morning when he skimmed easily through a paragraph. I hesitated. Should I try something harder? I did. I pulled out the 2nd grade reader from Rod & Staff. He paused over a few words that were new, but picked up on them easily once he saw them again as he read. Read he did. 3 lessons. He didn’t want to stop. I tried not to get too excited. I mean it must be an easy 3 lessons, right? We put the book away & went back to doing the rest of his program and on with the day. Later that night after all were tucked into bed I happened upon him hidden under the covers, flashlight in hand, reading ahead in his reader. Lesson 7 already! I VERY NICELY made him go put away the book & go to sleep. I went to my office afterward and cried. I cried because I’ve waited since Kindergarten for some sign that things would get better. 10 years wondering if my son would ever be “normal”, whatever that is. We are not out of the woods, but I can see the light ahead. He can read. Let me say it again as I cry. HE CAN READ!!!!    ~  B.Sanderson

My child has always been very good at language, understanding concepts and we thought he’d never have any problems with school, but it turned out exactly the opposite.  In fact, it got so bad at school, we pulled him out in third grade with the hopes that we could educate him at home.  I would think one day he had the information down pat.  The next day he couldn’t remember anything we had spent a large amount of time on.  I discovered he had severe problems not only with remembering, but he couldn’t read or do his phonics, either.  Then, I happened to hear about a seminar that was being put on by Little Giant Steps.  I went and listened to Jan Bedell, a teacher and neuro-educational specialist. As she talked about learning difficulties, she seemed to know all about the problems I was having with my son, as she described a list of symptoms that fit him to a tee.  I’m glad to report, after working with her on a neurodevelopmental program, my son is now processing at grade level.  The learning problems have disappeared and he’s back in public school at the top of his class.  I am so grateful for the help we received from Little Giant Steps and Jan Bedell.  M.D.

Just received this letter from a mom about the wonderful things she’s experiencing with her daughter’s improved abilities:

        Just a short note of encouragement to you for all your hard work in bringing this program to all of us.Our daughter, Shannon age 11, has ADHD & CAPD and had her initial eval. with Ruth on Feb. 18th. We’ve been on program for about 4 weeks now. Her #. letter sequencing age was 4-5 yrs old at eval., I believe. We’ve neverbeen able to give her more than 2-3 letters at a time when she’s asked how to spell something. Last night, she asked how to spell “Twilight”, I just rattled it off without pausing in the middle and I waited for the backlash…..”WAIT…THAT’S TOO FAST, I CAN’T DO IT THAT FAST!!!” But that never happened. I can’t believe it. A few hours later I pointed it out to her and she smiled and said, ” hummm, maybe I am getting better!”. I think that sole experience will be the best motivator for her. She sees tangible evidence that all this work is actually changing her brain.

ANSWER:  Many Children Have Low Auditory Progressing Abilities Which Decreases The Ability To  Receive, Comprehend, Store, and Retrieve Information.

Why are so many children struggling with low auditory processing?
            Many years ago, when our educational system was developed, we were primarily an auditory society; we ate together as families 2-3 times a day and TALKED.  We read as a family in the evenings or listened to radio broadcasts for hours.  We developed our auditory processing ability by practicing. 
            Today, our society is primarily visual with T. V., computers, movies, electronic games, etc.  These all consuming visual activities permeate our lives and leave little time for the truly important practice of listening and developing our auditory processing abilities.  Even though our society is primarily visual, we are still using the educational delivery system that was developed for a primarily auditory society. 
 
What can be done?
            Since the brain is dynamic and ever changing, much can be done to remediate the processing ability of any person, at any age.  By providing specific stimulation to the brain to increase ones auditory processing ability, global benefits will result for the child or anyone who applies these activities for a four month period. 
            You can request a FREE auditory test kit  or by emailing: orderdept@littlegiantsteps.com  Put “Free Auditory Test Kit” in the subject line. This kit will allow you to test any individual ages four to adult.  Also, reading the Auditory Processing Booklet will add to you knowledge and skill.  This information will give you a baseline to work from and a better understanding of your child’s struggles or inefficiencies.  To increase auditory processing, digit span exercises can be done with a four minute time investment and the reward of increased abilities globally.  Instructions for digit spans are also included in the free kit.
              In addition to digit spans daily, I encourage you to read to your children at least one hour a day as an additional way of developing processing skills.  When they are not listening to you read, they could be listening to books or stories on tape/CD (without the book).  This is a great way to add value to the time spent playing with legos, coloring or other fine motor activities.  Listening to audio stories and books (not music) increases vocabulary, helps reinforce sentence structure, provides opportunity for narration, models good writing structure in addition to developing auditory sequential processing. 
            Audio stories are also a wonderful way to productively occupy pre-school children while you are schooling older siblings.  You can see amazing results when you get your child up to grade level in his/her auditory processing abilities.

Winning Over Learning Disabilities

Jan Bedell is known as “The Brain Coach!  Here is her post for today:

  I am privileged to see some of the most dedicated parents in the world!  I had a family in my office yesterday with 3 children on the autism spectrum.  She has been faithful to do her neurodevelopmental (ND) program and Samonas sound therapy with the children for several years.  After all that hard work, two of the three would not be “suspect” to the untrained eye to have any  unusual or autistic issues. The other child is so mild that people that don’t see them often are amazed.  The thing that I thought was so momentous about this mother is that she finds herself expecting another child and one of the first things she thought of was putting the infant on an ND program very early to make sure he had a great start in life.

When we came to Little Giant Steps two years ago, Timothy was barely passing 2^nd grade.  He wasn’t reading very well, couldn’t remember things that he learned the day before, couldn’t concentrate because the noise in the classroom bothered him and he was just really frustrated.  At home, just cleaning his room was extremely overwhelming for him.

     One of the first things we noticed after he was on the program for about four months is that he was able to clean and organize his room with little supervision.  It is like we have a different child!      

     Timothy has been back in public school for 4^th grade (after being home schooled for 1½ years and focusing on the Little Giant Steps program) and is making mostly A’s and a few B’s.  His reading has improved beyond our wildest hopes.  He has improved exponentially in every academic area.  His teacher said, “I don’t know what you did with him, but this is not the same child as in 2^nd grade.” 

     I met with Timothy’s dyslexia teacher recently because she sent out results of her end of year testing. Even though the report showed that his scores increased in every area, I wanted to know if this was satisfactory progress. His teacher said, “No it wasn’t just ok progress, it was GREAT progress!”. She said he was the “STAR of the class” and that all of the students look to him. For example, at the beginning of the year he could read 15 out 50 words. At the end of the year he could read 45 out of 50 of the words on this specific test. She said most kids do not make this much progress the first year!!!  She said, “You know, he still has a whole year left in this class.” 

     Here are Timothy’s TAKS scores for this year: 

• Reading:  93 (only missed 3 out of 40). This score is one point away from “commended”.
• Math:  82 (only missed 8 out of 42). Because of this score, he will not be pulled out of class next year for math tutoring.
• Writing:  72 (only missed 7 out of 28).  His writing improved a lot this year and I know it will continue to improve next year.

     We are so proud of him and he is proud of himself, also. These scores are just more evidence to substantiate that the ND approach to learning is incredibly successful!   D. C. in Frisco, TX  May/2009