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Student Stories
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Leah ~ High School Student, 10th Grade, 16 years old
Randall ~ 6th Grade, 12 years old
Carminn & Lorenzo ~ Kindergarten & 8 years old
Celeste & Amanda ~ Twin sisters in after-school sessions
Tony ~ Talkies® student
Melissa ~ Talkies® student, 3rd Grade
Katie ~ Talkies® student
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Leah
High School Student, 10th Grade, 16 years old
Leah was a very bright student in the 10th grade. Her parents never gave her learning skills much thought because she had received pretty normal grades over the years, once even being recognized 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 realized 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 grade 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 Grade, 12 years old
Randall was home schooled most of 4th and 5th grade 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 Center and couldn’t afford to temporarily relocate during his instruction. Realizing 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 Center. 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 center 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 ensure that they had the skills and support they needed, occasionally they would return to the Learning Center 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 to 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.
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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 math facts. One day this summer, Tony asked his dad to do math 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 visualizing my math 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 first grade (Melissa was at the end of her 3rd-grade 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!
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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 Center!Janet
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