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Case Study: From Severe Speech Delays & Tears To Grade Level
Levi has severe speech delays due to APD, and nothing helped until Gemm Learning in 2nd grade. His vocabulary and conversation are much improved, and he is no longer pulled out of the class for extra support.
Levi
Age: 7
Location: Mississippi
Diagnosis: APD
Protocol
Levi works for 30 minutes per day, 5 days per week, for 7 months. He completed the two Fast ForWord cognitive programs and Fast ForWord Reading 1.
Results
Levi, a child who struggled with both receptive and expressive language, went from an extremely limited vocabulary to having a
sizable vocabulary in just 6 months. His ability to follow verbal instructions has improved greatly.
“He is no longer pulled out of the classroom for instruction!” – Levi’s Grandmother
Severe APD-Related Speech Delays Held Levi Back
Levi struggled with speech from an early age. By age 4, he was still unable to say more than three words.
His family hoped that interaction with peers would lead to greater progress when he started school. Yet, Levi’s vocabulary only increased to about twenty words before the next school year.
Levi was reluctant to talk, and his speech resembled that of a much younger child. When his teacher asked him to do something, he would often do something totally different. His ability to process and hold language in working memory was very much impaired.
It seemed to others like he was in his own little world, but his challenge was that people were speaking too fast for him.
He moved on to Kindergarten and first grade, eventually learning his ABCs and counting to 20, but he was struggling. Attempting to memorize five sight words for school within a week led to constant tears. And despite daily practice, the five words were viewed each day as though they’d never been seen or studied before.
Finding An Answer
Nothing helped, including early speech therapy and extra instruction at school.
Fortunately, his grandmother saw an article in a parenting magazine about auditory processing. The descriptions she read “fit Levi to a tee”, so she did more research on the topic and scheduled an evaluation with an audiologist.
His family soon learned that he had severe APD (auditory processing disorder), and the audiologist recommended that Levi wear amplifiers and try Fast ForWord.
Working With Gemm Learning
Levi began our program in February of his first-grade year. His grandmother sat with him for most sessions. T
The activities were difficult at first, but as he learned to discriminate between sounds, he started recognizing things his grandmother had to really concentrate to hear.
“He just amazes me,” she shared. They made the program a priority, ensuring they worked on it regularly and limited distractions. Soon Levi’s grandmother began to notice a correlation: “As he progressed in the program, he got better and better at school.”
Results – Amazing Growth in Language, Reading and Math
Between February and May, Levi increased 100 points in his reading and 400 points in math at school. By the end of the school year, he was able to learn his spelling words on Monday and still know them on Friday.
Levi now has an immense vocabulary and often surprises his family by using words that they weren’t even aware he knew.
He’s no longer pulled out of the classroom for instruction, but was relying on the helper in class at times.
He is also able to follow directions better, and his speech is improving. “If we had not found this,” his grandmother shared, “Fast ForWord and that testing, there’s no telling how long he would have gone not knowing what was wrong, because he just was not improving at all.”
The new school year just started, and his family now has high hopes for the future.