Norman Doidge, the author of The Brain that Changes Itself, has written about Mike Merzenich, one of the creators of the Fast ForWord family of programs.
Fast ForWord Software
On his website www.normandoidge.com this is what he has to say about Fast ForWord, Gemm Learning’s primary program:
“A reading disorder, caused by an auditory processing problem… If it is a learning disorder based on auditory processing, Scientific Learning has a program that has been tested and shown excellent results, with hundreds of thousands of people.”
This is the Fast ForWord Dr. Doidge described in Chapter 3. Developed by world leaders in neuroplasticity, the program can be ordered and done on a home computer. It is quite fast, if you have the brain problem it treats, and you can do it at home.
Gemm Learning uses Fast ForWord very successfully to help students to improve their learning skills. The home based programs work on underlying cognitive skills to address a number of learning diagnoses ranging from dyslexia to autism, from auditory processing disorder to grade shortfalls, from attention deficits to Asperger’s Syndrome.
Book Reviews
“Fascinating. Doidge’s book is a remarkable and hopeful portrait of the endless adaptability of the human brain.
— Oliver Sacks
“The discovery that our thoughts can change the structure and function of our brains – even into old age – is the most important breakthrough in neuroscience in four centuries.
In this revolutionary look at the brain, best selling author, psychiatrist, and psychoanalyst Norman Doidge, M.D., introduces both the brilliant scientists championing this new science of neuroplasticity and the astonishing progress of the people whose lives they have transformed. Introducing principles we can all use as well as a riveting collection of case histories – stroke patients cured, a woman with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole, learning and emotional disorders overcome, IQs raised, and aging brains rejuvenated – The Brain That Changes Itself has “implications for all human beings, not to mention human culture, human learning and human history”
— The New York Times.
“Readers will want to read entire sections aloud and pass the book on to someone who can benefit from it…Links scientific experimentation with personal triumph in a way that inspires awe.”
— The Washington Post