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Student Stories
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Leah
~ High School Student, 10th Year, 16 years
old
Randall ~ 6th Year, 12
years old
Carminn & Lorenzo ~ Kindergarten & 8 years
old
Celeste & Amanda
~ Twin sisters in after-school
sessions
Tony
~ Talkies™ student
Melissa ~ Talkies™ student, 3rd Year
Katie
~ Talkies™ student
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 Leah
High School Student, 10th
Year, 16 years
old
Leah
was a very bright student in the 10th year. Her parents
never gave her learning skills much thought because she had received
pretty normal grades over the years, once even being recognised by her
school as the student of the year.
As
her classes in high school began to get harder, they noticed that she
was not enjoying school as much as she used to.
Leah’s parents and teachers had a meeting and they realised
that schoolwork was much harder than it used to be for Leah, and took
much longer to complete.
A
Diagnostic Learning Evaluation at Lindamood-Bell showed that most of
Leah’s scores placed her well above the average range, except
her reading comprehension score, which was falling flat around the 8th year level. Leah’s scores confirmed that she had
very high potential, and that her reading comprehension, while not
extremely weak, was holding her back in high school. Leah and
her parents felt instruction with Lindamood-Bell could help close the
gap between her potential and her performance, make school easier, and
prepare her for the challenges of college.
Initially Leah began attending Lindamood-Bell daily after
school for two hours. Her progress was very quick, and after
a few weeks she reduced her time to one-hour per day. In all,
Leah attended Lindamood-Bell for about 50 hours of instruction, and
knew it was well worth every minute when her mostly
‘C’ grades improved to all A’s and
B’s. Leah was especially proud of her success in
physics, where she aced the final!
Randall
6th Year, 12 years
old
Randall was homeschooled most of 4th and 5th year because he
had fallen so far behind in school and was often the brunt of cruel
jokes. His mother knew that she couldn’t support
him all the way through high school, but the pain of watching him cry
every time they discussed school was more than she could
take.
Randall and his family lived nearly 90 miles away from their
nearest Lindamood-Bell® Learning Centre and couldn’t
afford to temporarily relocate during his instruction.
Realising how important it was to get Randall the help he needed, they
decided to make the drive. This solution would be
inconvenient but they were determined to make it work.
Every
day for the next six weeks, Randall and his mother would drop his
siblings off at school early then drive for nearly two hours to the
Lindamood-Bell® Learning Centre. He would attend
sessions for 4 hours, and then they would make the long drive back
home. During that time, Randall’s mom attended the
Lindamood-Bell® Professional Development Workshops to learn
about the programs and she spent hours with Randall’s
instructional team to learn how to continue working with Randall
herself at home. As the six weeks at the centre came to an
end, Randall and his mother worked hard to prepare themselves and keep
up all the good work at home.
Over
the next few months Randall and his mom worked diligently
together. To insure that they had the skills and support they
needed, occasionally they would return to the Learning Centre for some
follow-up sessions and consulting. They did a great job and
saw good progress. After a few months, Randall was able to do
his classwork all on his own.
Thanks to his incredible family and the support of the team
at Lindamood-Bell, Randall returned to public school without all the
tears and stress! He continued to improve through high school
and graduated with A’s and B’s.
Carminn &
Lorenzo
This
note is from a mother of a brother and sister who temporarily moved
into a hotel to be near one of our Learning Centers. Lorenzo
is 8 and on the autism spectrum, Carminn participated in our Kindergarten Boost program.
“Hello everyone at Lindamood Bell. I have messages
from the kids. I asked them what they wanted to say and to
whom. Here it is. Lorenzo said "M--- I love you and like
working with you on vocab". Then he said "L--- I like working
with you, you are a great teacher". Then he said "S---, thank
you for helping me work on my star words". Carminn said,
"S--- you are a nice man". And she said M--- & L--- I
really like you and everyone there". She then said, "she
misses you all and really liked working with you all and she hopes you
liked her too". Lorenzo ends with "G---, I liked walking with
you and saying my cards and freeze".
I let
them use their own words on what they wanted to say. They
were really happy about that. Of course, everyone there is
awesome! I wanted to say again thank you too
everyone. I can't believe I did the 4 1/2 months.
I
wanted to share some positive news on Lorenzo. He continues
to open up and express himself better. His uncle and aunt
came down for the summer. They only get to see him once a
year and of course that one day they usually see him is not his best
day. But this time he was awesome and comfortable with
them. He participated at the dinner table, answering their
questions, looking at them when he spoke, wanting to show his room to
them. I can't tell you how great he was and how happy I was
that he seems more comfortable. His voice is louder and more
confident. His uncle mentioned how much he has
blossomed. I took him to see his neurologist in Beverly Hills
today and she was happy as well. She felt he blossomed as
well. I gave her information on your center to give to her
patients and so she could read about your programs. She was
very interested. The other day he walked into someone's
office and started talking to them and answering their
questions. I was in shock. They asked him if he
likes the Transformers and so he began telling them that he saw the
Transformer movie and what happened in the movie. He didn't
even know this person. I don't know how school will go, but
at least the social confidence and communication is a lot better which
is important.
Anyway, that's all. I know I have more stories but I can't
remember them now. I will keep in
touch.”
Take
care everyone, Nancy P.
Celeste &
Amanda
Twin
sisters who participated in after-school
sessions
Performance levels indicated they would
not need the level of intensity of more than one or two hours per
day.
Came
daily after school (5 days / week) for nearly four months.
Today, Celeste holds a Masters Degree in Biology and Amanda
is a Ph.D. professor at a state university.
Back
to Top
Tony
When
Tony came for instruction last summer (for only two hours/day), he had
little expressive language and spoke mostly in one-word
sentences. When asked what color the turtle's shell was, he
would answer, "Round."
He
needed constant reassurance, asking, "Am I doing a good job?" at the
end of each response, and if his clinician missed one and failed to
say, "Yes, Tony!" he would have a complete meltdown and have to stop
instruction. Tony's parents credited Lindamood-Bell with
getting Tony to a place with his language that allowed him to be
accepted into a private school for LD students.
When
Tony came back for instruction again this past summer, he was talking
with complete, coherent sentences about all kinds of things!
We
moved into V/V® and SI, and he made great
progress. We met with his teacher, and she has seen a
tremendous change in Tony just since the end of last school year from
coming to Lindamood-Bell (he has the same teacher again this
year). Tony's parents tell us that Tony is constantly telling
his older, neuro-typical sister that she needs to be
picturing!
Here's the best part though: we have not worked on math at
all with Tony; instead, his father helps him at home and has created a
chart for Tony's maths facts. One day this summer, Tony asked
his dad to do maths with him, but Daniel said, "I have to work on the
computer now, but I could give you some problems out loud, and we'll
see how it goes." Tony was getting every problem correct, and
amazed, his father said, "Tony, how are you doing that?" Tony
said very matter-of-factly, "I'm visualising my maths
chart."
Melissa
Similar to Tony, Melissa used only one-word sentences, was
overwhelmed by language and would cover her ears and yell, "Stop!"
during the diagnostic evaluation. She also needed a
"no-talking break" during each session.
After
about two weeks, Melissa's mother told us that she had seen an
"explosion of expressive language" and that Melissa had begun telling
her stories about things that had happened to her in Kindergarten and 1st year (Melissa was at the end of her 3rd year at the time),
and she asked her, "Melissa, have you always had these memories, or are
they just now coming back to you?" Melissa replied, "I've
always had them; I just didn't have a way to tell you about
them."
Another huge victory for Melissa's mom is that Melissa
will now tell her big brother, who she always had let boss her around,
"I'm not your servant!" with her hands on her hips!
Back to Top
Katie
Katie's first summer with us was a two-hour-per-day Talkies™
program, and she would consistently mix up size, shape, color, etc. and
expressed herself by pointing or in one-word utterances. One
day, Katie was looking around the house, and her mother said, "Katie,
what are you doing?" Katie, said, "I lost a toy."
Janet said, "Can I help you look for it?" and Katie answered,
"Yes. It's this big, round, and gray." All in one
fell swoop, she got all the concepts right and expressed in a complete
sentence!
At
the end of her second summer of Talkies™, Katie told us that she wanted
to learn to read (they do no academics in her SDC and have their hands
full just trying to keep the kids safe; in fact, Katie has been badly
injured at school by a classmate). We started her in Seeing
Stars®, and her reading jumped up nearly to grade level with just 2
hours/day for about 2 months. Katie graduated to Visualizing
and Verbalizing™ and On Cloud Nine™ this summer, and did really well in
both programs.
I am
so grateful for the Lindamood-Bell® program. Katie made tremendous
progress with the program. The staff are professional, patient and
kind. I appreciate the continued support and encouragement Katie and
our family has received. This program greatly improved
Katie’s speech, reading and her life. We are very
enthusiastic about the Saratoga, California Centre!
Janet
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