Linda Mood-Bell

[Debra Surbrook]

My son has severe language comprehension problems and has been evaluated at Linda Mood-Bell learning center. They have reccommended their "Visualizing and Verbalizing" program. Does anyone have experience with this program?

[Claire]

I don't have direct experience with it, but I know from reading posts over the years that it is a very good program for what it works on. Quite a few reading/language tutors use it. From what I have read, IdeaChain (http://www.mindprime.com) uses the same approach. It doesn't go quite as high in level as V&V, but someone who has used IdeaChain can purchase the V&V manual for about $50 (from Gander Publishing) and understand how to use it to carry on further. The V&V manual is written for those who have attended a training seminar in how to do V&V, so it does not contain benchmarks and you are expected to assemble your own materials for use with the program.

Going through a LMB center for V&V is the absolute most expensive way to do it. It is the best way for some families. However, if you have a compliant child I think you can get similar results with IdeaChain. I have heard that the telephone support for IdeaChain is excellent.

To understand better what IdeaChain and V&V work on, click on "why people have problems with comprehension" box in the upper lefthand corner of the MindPrime (http://www.mindprime.com) homepage.

[LisaTheresa]

My son did LMB's Visualizing and Verbalizing program at one of their centers when he was 5. It was an excellent program for him and his receptive language and comprehension skyrocketed afterwards. I think he was somewhere in the 20th or 30th percentile for comprehension on the kindergarten level prior to LMB and afterwards he was in something like the 80th percentile on the 5th grade level. I don't have the numbers in front of me so that isn't exact, but it was that dramatic. He went from being upset if I put a 10 minute book on tape on in the car to listening to and enjoying all the Beverly Cleary books and much more during the weeks we travelled back and forth to LMB.

We took him back for follow-up testing 2 years after he had completed the V&V program and he had made many more huge gains which I believe were because of that program.

Going to a center is the most expensive way to do it, but the intensity factor was really stressed as being important and I knew there was no way I could do V&V for 2 hours or more a day with my son. I'm sure some parents could, but I knew that I could not.

Because my son was so young, we only did the program for 2 hours a day and we did it for 8 weeks. Our total cost was something like $6,500 for that, which was a huge amount of money for us. However, when I think of all the years that we paid $5,000 at $100 a week to speech therapists and made very minimal progress, the $6,500 in 8 weeks was a bargain.

Lisa

[calimomRaD]

I do not agree that Lindamood Bell is the most expensive way to go. EVERYTHING and EVERYONE is expensive. It does work. When we calculated the costs of the options we had it was less or just more at once then the other schools and private tutors we were considering. Even the at home programs were expensive and time consuming and relied on us to really be able to do it. We were looking to hire people to work with our son for the same or more per hour. The difference was it was only one hour a week for a couple of years. I suppose there are other options including teaching your child yourself or perhaps finding someone qualified and experiecned that does not charge 90 or more an hour but I did not find that to be an option for us. I was worried and at times skeptical about LB. I was told he just can't spell and accommodations were in order. He is gifted with dyslexia. He compensated for the reading and he reads above grade level according to school but spelling and writing were not easy at all. The irony is he can gets A's an B's on spelling but can't remember them after the test day. He misspelled sight words but could sound out other words. He resisted and refused writing since the first grade. Now in fourth grade I don't have time to waste so we did the seeing stars and I have seen alot of improvement. He can see a word looks spelled wrong. He can try to spell a word and just spells words when he writes his own reading logs for school. It is amazing. He is not at grade level yet but I am a believer in LB as he is writing and spelling with a new independence. He even likes going to LB. They are nice not dispaproving like regularl school teachers.I think it is so sad that I don't know how far we can afford to go. I wish I could afford enrichement for my daughter in first grade. The visual imagery part is the key. The improvement is not just academic. I wish instead of the price increasing they could find a way to make it more financially accessible to famalies who really don't have the money and don't have a way to ever pay on such a loan. We really need to do the math part too. We have him in school and pull him out early at the end of the day for LB. I wish we could go all out and do 4 or 5 hours a day. I wish other children could get this method. There is a private school nearby that people suggest like it is an option but it cost 27,000 a year. We are in public school and it is either to boring for him because of the gifted part of him or too frustrating because of his learning disability that I prefer to call a production disability. With my micromanagement he has had good grades but he talks about how he does poorly in school. I think now he feels that those grades that have improved are really his. He has A's and B's but the real measure or me is how much he is able to do at school not bring home, how much more he does on his own and not with say the process we used of dictation to mom and him writing by tracing on light box or writing it as I read it back. At times I simply typed and printed what he told me. Now he writes for himself more than ever. We have a ways to go but LB is the first real help we have gotten since we got him tested privately last year. By the way we had him tested by a psychologist, LB, OT, and a dyslexia center and still got resistance from the education system. I did not really get offered anything from school I told them we wanted LB because we wanted him to learn to spell and write not just depend on spell check for life. Again it is more than spelling he is happier. No child should walk around sad and say they are just stupid let alone when they are only in 7 or 8 years old! Why insurance or the education system can't help families with such programs I don't understand. We are lucky we found a way to pay for it Seeing Stars worked and I hope to do VV and Cloud Nine. If you can find a way to do it I believe it is worth it.