Fast ForWord For Autism

Software That Targets The
Processing Delays That Define Autism

One of the most pervasive cognitive weaknesses in autistic children is in their processing. A recent study by the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia found processing delays to be so common in autistic children that they are being considered as bio-marker indicators of autism. These delays exist whether or not the children have language issues.
Symptoms of autism

Processing difficulty creates muddiness in how sounds are heard. For many children this means words sound muddy or long sentences or multi-step directions are hard to keep up with. It can also impact reading -- unclear processing makes it hard to sound out words. Perhaps most importantly, the need to concentrate on listening or decoding is not only exhausting, it is diverting, taking up energy and focus that would otherwise be applied to comprehension or critical thinking.

Fast ForWord Strengthens Processing

The simple idea behind using Fast ForWord for autism is that faster, more accurate processing makes listening more accurate, makes decoding more natural and therefore helps reading comprehension. It is an adaptive software that acts like a slow pitch machine for a young baseballer. It starts at the level of the student then in tiny increments, at the student's own pace, pulls processing speed and accuracy up to natural language speed.

Clinicians and scientists are finding that more children than expected on the spectrum have been able to do the Fast ForWord program. This allows them to "access" the on-ramp of the program and to benefit from the "shaping" -- the tiny, incremental steps that the the brain requires to be able to change itself. If a child is able to get started, to access Fast ForWord, gains are indeed possible.
Autism treatment using Fast ForWord

Fast ForWord Autism Trial Results

One of the challenges in testing children with developmental delays is co-morbidity, the existence more often than not of multiple issues that are working together to impede progress. Even in higher functioning students, the gains from Fast ForWord are sometimes hard to measure because they take time -- cognitive gains translate into better learning and reading skills that then translate into better reading scores and grades. This is a process that often takes months in a world where "before" and "after" require much shorter term metrics.

Nevertheless, Fast ForWord is increasingly being used to help autistic students at home. The study shown in this chart was done in multiple sites. Children diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorders (PDD) made significant gains in their oral language skills after using the Fast ForWord Language v2 program.

One-third of the children were diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorder autism, two-thirds were diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorder- not otherwise specified.

The improvements seen for the two diagnoses were similar.
Request Autism Study

Fast ForWord Language Version 2

If you have tried Fast ForWord for autism before and your ASD child has not been able to get started, you may want to try again. First the break can help, as brain rewiring continues after work on the program stops, but secondly, the new version, Fast ForWord Language v2, has an easier starting point that makes it more accessible.
Fast ForWord Language