Also, our results vary which of course makes sense given that every child is different. The problem with studies like this is that ‘average gains” miss that some children have their lives changed AND we often hear our most dramatic changes a year later which these studies (for good scientific reasons) do not capture at all.

Having provided Fast ForWord to 350 kids or so in the last three years I am so over the does-this-work question. Not only does it work for kids with CAPD and/or reading issues, we are forever expanding who we agree to try it with and are constantly being surprised by its power to change brain wiring.

Your point about dose-response considerations is very important, in my view. The importance is heightened in areas where there may be a tipping point. By that I mean that learners might make minimal progress until an as-yet-unknown skill level is reached, at which point facility with the skill increases rapidly. I suspect (don’t have the experimental evidence to show, though) that some of these quasi-cognitive skills are subject to this phenomenon. In my clinical experience (and it’s only that), I’ve seen some remedial students go from struggling for weeks to read 20 nonsense words correct per minute to reading nearly double that number in just a few days.

The concept is analogous to the idea of developmental disequilibrium. It’s also connected to LaBerge and Samuels’ concept of automaticity. If y’all could relate entering child characteristics to the number of practice trails needed before that sort of phenomenon happens, that’d be something, no? Of course, first you’d need to show that it does, in fact, happen.