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Frequently Asked Questions
1. Can you give me a quick overview of PACE? Yes, here is a very quick 10 point overview:
PACE is taught by certified PACE trainers. Please review our site for further information about PACE and our phonemic training program, Master the Code. To find out more about how to decide which program or programs are right for your situation please see Help with Choices. For those outside of the Ft Myers Florida area, you may want to consider testing through The Gibson Test of Brain Skills and complete congnitive skills training in the comfort of you home using BrainSkills. 2. What are the major causes of learning problems? About 85 to 90 percent of learning difficulties are due to poor underlying learning skills. These skills include:
3. Are learning difficulties due to a lack of instruction? This is easy to determine. If you or your child is able to understand and perform as others do with extra help or tutoring, then the cause of the struggle is poor or inadequate instruction. But if good performance is achieved only after long hours, sweat, tears, or many mistakes, then the problem is deeper. 4. Is a lack of motivation the cause of learning problems? Very few enter school or a job not wanting to succeed. It is only after they find it difficult, experience failure, or are ridiculed that they avoid the activities that give them pain. In other words, a lack of motivation is usually the result of a learning difficulty—not the cause. 5. Are learning difficulties inherited? Heredity does play a role, but it is minor. It is generally believed that between 40% and 70% of our mental abilities are learned, not inherited. Therefore, we can accomplish far more if we stop blaming the problems on genes, which we can't change, and start enhancing the skills that are learned and can be changed. 6. Can a child with normal intelligence have a problem with learning? Absolutely, IQ is only an average of many different learning skills, which means it's possible for someone who has a "normal" intelligence to have scored high on some skills and low on others. And if those "low" scores are in the skills requiring reading or math, then reading or math acheivement will be low even though the IQ is "normal". 7. If learning skills are learned, why are they not learned in school? Every school activity a child does has the potential to further develop an underlying learning skill. But, this will only happen if the activity is challenging. School lessons are often either too hard (frustrating) or too easy (boring) because even children in the same class seldom have equal learning skills. Therefore, to make significant improvement in these skills, individual attention is required. Many schools simply don't have the time or funds to provide this very intensive and structured one-on-one training. Also, most teachers tend to teach to the child's stronger skills. When the weak skills are avoided, they don't develop. The result may be a life-long learning handicap. The purpose of PACE is to help people learn easier, faster, and more efficiently. To do this, we must first determine how much they can be improved and what impact that improvement will have on the person's learning and life. If the impact is significant, we then design a very intense one-on-one training program that involves active participation by the child's family, One of the most significant and noticeable impacts that PACE makes on children's lives is on their self-esteem. When children see improvements in their performance, they feel much better about themselves and work harder to achieve even more. The Brain Trainers can train you or your child in the needed learning skills if you are in the Southwest Florida area. We cover a large portion of Lee and Collier County, including but not limited to Naples, Bonita Springs, Estero, Fort Myers, Sanibel, Captiva, North Fort Myers, Lehigh Acres, Alva, Cape Coral and Punta Gorda. If you are outside this region, you may want to consider in home training starting with on-line testing with The Gibson Test of Brain Skills and following up with our affordable on-line computer cognitive training program BrainSkills. 9. Is PACE based on clinical results of laboratory studies? PACE was developed in clinical settings using real people with real learning problems, utilizing and applying the best scientific research. PACE is directed by some of the nation's most highly regarded experts on learning in the fields of clinical and neuropsychology, visual and auditory processing, and education. These experts have been responsible for hundreds of professional articles, research projects, books, publications, and lectures throughout the world. Their purpose is to ensure that new developments in learning are applied to help those with cognitive deficiencies succeed. In the last few years, great strides have been made by researchers to expand our understanding of how the brain works. This has allowed the creation of better learning models and remedial strategies to help those who have difficulty learning. Today, PACE is at the forefront of using this knowledge to make significant improvements in learning skills. 10. Why are most PACE training procedures non-academic? Academic content could cause some students to resist training because it may seem too much like school, which the student may associate with negative experiences. Also, the short-range goal of PACE is improved learning performance. PACE improves the student's learning performance so the student is able to learn more easily and efficiently. This then makes it possible to achieve PACE's long range goal of improved academic or job related performance. 11. What is a training task line? PACE training procedures are made up of tasks that are designed to meet specific goals. The tasks are related, make repetitive demands on a deficient skill, and progressively increase in difficulty. This is a process-specific approach to training (as apposed to a general stimulation approach). A process-specific approach targets the same function systematically and repetitively with related tasks. 12. Why is PACE provided one-on-one rather than in a group? PACE is done one-on-one for two reasons. First, the activities need to be sequenced according to each student's skill level. Each training task demands very specific skills. The student needs to be constantly challenged. If the task is too easy, it's boring. But if the task is too hard, it's frustrating. Procedures that are challenging will bring the most improvement. Second, we need to provide immediate feedback. Students need praise when performing correctly as an incentive to keep working, and they need correction when making an error so they are aware of the mistake. Later, they learn to recognize and correct their own errors. 13. How is PACE different from other remediation programs? Traditional help for individuals with learning problems has typically focused on one of four methodologies:
Although these methods may be effective in correcting a sensory, motor, or very specific academic problem, they have had limited results in significantly improving learning performance. PACE, on the other hand, uses process-specific approaches with planned, repetitive exercises that place demands on deficient mental functions. When the student masters the exercise, a more demanding exercise that targets the same mental skills is available to advance the training. This progressively strengthens the underlying learning skills, commonly resolving the deficiency. 14. Do all PACE students progress at the same rate? No. Normally a student with fewer deficient learning skills will progress faster than a student with many., Each procedure is graded according to difficulty and tasks become progressively more complex. PACE is regulated by mastery, so the number of task completed during training differ from student to student. In other words, once the student passes a task, he or she is then allowed to progress to the next challenge (a more difficult task). 15. Do PACE students get frustrated? Seldom. Because we start at the point the student can achieve and then gradually increase the demand, the student gains ability and confidence. At times the student may get frustrated In the same way she or he would with a video game. Yes. The skills developed are used each day the student is in school or at work. They are constantly being used and therefore don't regress. This retention is reflected in a study that showed 98.7% of the one year follow-up cognitive test scores were at least as high as they were at completion of PACE. . 17. Why does PACE require so many hours per week? We believe that getting big, fast changes is far better than getting slow, gradual changes for two reasons. First, it is easier to get parents to commit to working very hard for 12 weeks than one hour a week for 18 months. Second, it's important that students see big changes quickly—this will increase their self-esteem and they'll be motivated to work even harder because they can see the payoff. 18. How do we know we are getting results? If you are coming to us for PACE training, our training is not done in secret. Parents are required to spend at least 3 hours per week doing procedures with their child, unless they enroll in our five-day-a-week program option. Either way, parents will know if improvement is being made either when they are working on training activities with their child, or by other changes in the child's approach to activities in and around the home. 19. If we are not seeing results, what do we do? Stop. If at anytime you are not satisfied that the changes are not worth the time, money, or effort, then stop. We're here to get the maximum improvement in the shortest period of time. If that's not happening, don't continue. Be aware that 25% of the improvement usually occurs in the first half of the training, while an amazing 75% is usually seen in the second half of the training. 20. What does a PACE program cost? Fees are comparable to those charged by tutoring centers. Our first option for training consists of all training being provided by The Brain Trainers. This training consist of one hour a day, five days a week for about 12 weeks. Our second option for PACE training entails one hour a day, three days out of the week with The Brain Trainers and another 3 hours a week with parental or other adult training at home for about 12 weeks. This second option potentially reduces the fees by 40%. Hourly rates apply.
A third option for training is available on a case by case basis and will be discussed only during consulation and after testing. This third option will be offered exclusively to parents and families with a proven track record of being able to work intensively with their child, and at the sole descretion of The Brain Trainers. 21. How does PACE differ from academic tutoring? PACE tackles the cause rather than the effect. If the reason for learning difficulties is poor instruction, then academic tutoring is the correct solution. But, if there is a deficient underlying learning skill, then academic tutoring is only a stop-gap or band-aid solution and will need to be repeated year after year. PACE, on the other hand, "cures" the cause. It is simply the difference between giving them fish to eat (tutoring), and teaching them to fish so they can feed themselves (PACE —by giving them the learning skills to become self-learning). The Brain Trainers offers two guarantees for PACE and Master the Code. If you are in another area and going to another PACE/Master the Code provider, check with them on their guarantees as these are individually determined. (1) If after four sessions of PACE you are not completely satisfied and choose to withdraw, there is a full refund. (2) If after the training is completed there has not been a least a two year improvement in a deficient learning skill (or three years if also doing Master the Code), and you are not satisfied, we offer two additional weeks of training free of charge (or three weeks with Master the Code). The number of hours each additional week will be either 3 or 5 depending upon which training schedule was being applied.
23. Can I talk to someone who has gone through PACE? We wish everyone would. Our greatest supporters are our own students and their parents. If you would like more information please see our Why We Do What We Do page and check out either Sierra's Story (a child's PACE and Master the Code journey) or Keith's Story (an adult who has been through the program). These are family members of The Brain Trainers who have gone through the program. Please also see our testimonial page. You may also contact us at thebraintrainers@comcast.net. If you give us permission, we will forward your name, number and/or email to the parent of a student or an adult student who has either completed or is currently in the program so you may ask them some questions. 24. What results does PACE get? PACE's pre and post test results show changes in cognitive skills that are unmatched. Our studies are not just done on a small control group of 15 or 25 students, but on thousands of students and by a multitude of providers throughout the country. Average gains in deficient learning skills are greater than 3.6 years in only 12 weeks, and even greater when combined with Master the Code! These gains are reflected in IQ scores that show an average 28 point increase where IQ was below the norm and an average 13 point increase where IQ was initially above the norm! 25. How will PACE affect dyslexia (poor reading)? Numerous studies have shown the major cause of reading problems is the inability to "unglue" sounds in words, blend sounds to form words, and analyze sounds within words. In other words, most students with reading problems struggle to hear, analyze, and separate the individual phonemes in words. Furthermore, it has been shown that children don't automatically earn to segment words into sounds simply because they are exposed to a reading system. PACE includes procedures that evaluate, pinpoint and develop, to advanced levels, the underlying mental skills required to assure fast and efficient learning-to-read skills. Beyond this, the developers of PACE have also developed a revolutionary new sound-to-code based reading and spelling program called Master the Code. 26. How does PACE affect motivation and self-image? Internal motivation comes from within a person. It is a person's individual need, for a reason others may not even be aware of, to attain a goal. Those with a history of learning problems are often lacking in this area. They do not feel that they can attain goals, so they do not have the motivation to try to attain the. The possibility of improvement seems so poor that they do not sustain the maximum effort that should be put forth to accomplish a task. Therefore, in PACE , we make sure students quickly achieve many small successes. In many cases, within three weeks, students move beyond what they had previously thought would be impossible, and are then ready and eager for new and greater challenges. Success breads success, and as students experience improved skills and capabilities, their self-image will soar! 27. Do you have a trial program? The Brain Trainers offer a four-session money back guarantee for PACE training. If you are going to another provider, please check their policy. This trial period gives you a chance to test the waters. If after four sessions you don't feel comfortable or doubt the effectiveness, or for any reason you don't want to continue, stop. We want you to continue with the program only if you fully support the program. 28. How does PACE handle mistakes and errors? To accomplish a task, a student needs feedback so that he or she can understand what is correct and what is incorrect. If the student performs a task correctly, the trainer reinforces the performance by giving immediate praise. This will create a sense of accomplishment in the student and an internal motivation to keep trying to succeed. Besides positive reinforcement, the student also needs corrective feedback. If the student performs the task incorrectly, the trainer informs the student of the error and has the student repeat the task. Then, when the student understands when an error has occurred, he or she can enter the second stage of correction. This involves the student correcting his or her own errors and repeating the task on his of her own. Finally, the student is allowed to continue a task without interruption—even after an error—as long as he or she is aware of it. 29. How long does it take to complete PACE? After about 12 weeks, post testing can be done to determine progress. Because the average improvement is about a 3.6 year gain for each deficient skill with PACE training, most students are then at or above their age level. At this point, parents, students and The Brain Trainers can determine if they need or want to continue. Our recommendation is that as long as the gains being made are worth the time, money and effort, continue—and if not, discontinue. If the student is also enrolled in Master the Code, the post test will be given at around the 24th week. 30. To what degree can mental skills be changed? Mental skills may sometimes appear fixed, especially since IQ results have been used for years to classify and label people as having a specific intelligence. But the truth is that we do not have to accept poor mental skills, because we can improve them! They are not fixed. A numerical IQ result is simply an average at one point in time of the many mental skills that are tested by an intelligence test. This average reflects a person's present level of mental functioning—not a fixed ability that is constant across a life span. Mental skills are learned skills and can, therefore, be practiced and improved. For years we have known that we can modify and improve mental skills. But, most efforts at helping students with learning problems still disregard this knowledge. Instead, many people try to modify the student's environment. 31. What studies show mental skills can be modified? There are numerous studies that show this modification is possible. The following is just a sample of these studies supporting the fact that a wide range of mental skills can be—and have been—improved. Using a program aimed at developing reasoning and figural classification skills, Jacobs showed a measurable improvement in these skills, a better retention rate, and a transfer of skills to related tasks. Meichenbaum was able to improve mental performance in a variety of therapeutic situations by modifying the inner speech patterns of children and adults, which shows that learning and memory skills can be trained. Blank revealed IQ gains of 14.5 points in a one-on-one program that lasted 75 minutes per week over several months. The IQ gains dropped to only seven points when the amount of training was reduced to 45 minutes per week. Bloom and Broder, using an individualized problem-solving training program, obtained significant gains in grades if there were more than seven sessions. Lindamood reported individual reading gains averaged 2.4 years in a four-month period for eighth and ninth graders who received auditory-conceptual training.
Greenspan showed a significant improvement in directionality and a reduction of reversal errors after using perceptual-motor training.
Impressive results have also been documented by Feuerstien, Holzman, and Trabasso for reasoning; Belmont, Brown and Wanschura for memory, Klahr and Siegler for problem solving; Farr, Hendrickson, Walsh, Brown, Getz, Halliwell, Rowell, and Rosner for visual processing; and Peters, Rose, Yates, Varner and Turner for auditory processing.
The results the PACE program study not only show a tremendous change in processing skills ( a 3.6 year improvement in 10 weeks), but also a significant transfer to higher mental skills (a 23-point gain in IQ).
Neurobiologically-based facts and scientific studies show how skills can be modified. But the question of how training exercises can benefit everyday life remains. The answer is transfer.
Transfer occurs when a person applies some previously gained knowledge to a new situation that requires a similar task. For example, a person who learns how to play a card game can apply his knowledge to help him or her learn how to play other card games. The first game teaches the person how many points cards are typically worth, how the cards are typically divided among players, which cards may be considered "trump", and the value order of the cards. If a person can learn these rules that are common to most card games, he or she will find learning unfamiliar card games easier.
The same is true for mental training. A student who learns how to use visualization to remember a list of presidents will be able to use the same strategy to help him or her remember a story or spelling list as well. And a student who learns to do two or three tasks at one time (such as counting by three while following a moving object and clapping to beat) will be able to listen to a teacher and take notes at the same time. Each of the skills learned in PACE will transfer to help the student perform other activities that use the same skill.
Not only is this transfer "horizontal' (similar tasks), but it is also "vertical" (affecting higher mental skills). If a person learns a skill that a higher mental skill is dependent upon, that higher mental skill may improve as well. In other words, a student who learns to process information faster, concentrate more, visualize, remember, and conceptualize auditory patterns better will find learning much easier and faster. PACE targets the processing skills that academic skills rely upon to make learning easier and more efficient for the student. Then, the student will no longer have to learn to process, but can process to learn.
32. Are there any games, other curricula, or other resources that would enhance the skills worked on in PACE and Master the Code? There are a number of games and programs we recommend as complementary programs to PACE and Master the Code. Although PACE, and Master the Code are stand alone programs and need no additional supplementation, these additional programs and games are fun ways to apply the learning skills that are enhanced through our training. Check out many of these products in our store or go to their site links. Muggins/Knockout: High quality wooden math and strategy games that develop memory, processing speed, visual processing, and logic and reasoning skills. Makes math fun again! SET: (Included in the PACE student training kit.) This card game makes a great gift and is a fun way to work on visual processing, processing speed, logic and reasoning, and memory. This game can be played in a competitive fashion or as solitaire. Beat your best time! BLINK: A fast paced card game giving endless fun while honing processing speed, visual processing, logic and reasoning, and memory skills. Has a competitive element that motivates even the most reluctant. Easily adapted to the littlest family members. Quiddler: A fun alternative to Scrabble, in a card game format. May be played in groups or as solitaire. Works on logic and reasoning skills, visualization, processing speed, word attack skills and spelling. RightStart Mathematics Math Game kit: A great way to learn basic math facts without sequential counting. Helps with visualization, memory, and processing speed. Games cover basic math skills such as addition and subtraction, but also cover telling time, skip counting/multiplication, as well as fractions and division. Makes math fun and not a chore. Better than workbooks and really makes for a great Family Night option with added academic benefits. Just don't tell the kids! Handwriting Without Tears: A fantastic manuscript and cursive writing program designed by an occupational therapist, incorporating muscle memory technique, proper ergonomics of writing and simple tools to avoid letter and number reversal problems. Writing paper uses two lines (as opposed the multi-colored lines and dashes) which is less distracting to children who are already sensitive to excessive visual input such as the ADD/ADHD child. The program teaches letter formation, not tracing. A must for anyone who has a child who is left-handed as it is specifically designed to accommodate both left and right-handed students without the need to move the paper or manipulate their hand, contrary to good handwriting practices and positioning. More Time Mom Calendars: Great family calendar with large spaces and pocket in the back. Ideal for tracking PACE, BrainSkills, and Master the Code training times. Helps avoid schedule conflicts with other activities. This 16 month calendar is perfect as there is continuity regardless of when in the year you begin. Useful stickers included for common recurring activities.
Flylady.net: A free site geared to people who could use assistance with organization/decluttering skills and support. Very upbeat and encouraging. Written and presented by "Flylady" Marla Cilly, a self proclamed SHE (Side-tracked Home Executive) who suffers with CHAOS (Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome) if not keeping up with her simple routines. Great tips for organization and routines for children too—a must for those with ADD/ADHD, Autism/Autistic Spectrum Disorders and anyone else looking to get a better handle on their life.
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