Improving Auditory Processing in Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

• September 8, 2011 by Barbara Calhoun, Ph.D

Summary:  A recent study by Nicole Russo of Northwestern University and her colleagues, published in Behavioral and Brain Functions in 2010, evaluates whether auditory training programs such as Fast ForWord® can alleviate the auditory processing deficits so frequently seen in ASD children.

Russo’s study examines how effectively Fast ForWord could strengthen the auditory processing of speech sounds in similar ASD children. Her team hypothesized that such training would modify the neural processing of sound in children with ASD, and that such children “would show improvement in the neural encoding of speech syllables, including faster response timing, greater fidelity of the response relative to the stimulus, and more accurate pitch encoding over time.” (p. 3)

Results showed that training appeared to have benefited all participants in the experimental group, affecting their neural transcription of speech. According to Russo and her team, “each of the five children who underwent FFW training improved on at least one measure of cortical speech processing relative to the control group, with response timing improving in both quiet and noise for some children.” (p. 13)

Russo and her team were able to conclude that directed auditory training using Fast ForWord shows great promise for improving auditory processing in children with ASD – specifically, those high-functioning children who have hearing in the typical range. 

 

Content:  This study was published in Behavioral and Brain Functions in 2010 and was done at Northwestern University by Dr. Nicole Russo and her colleagues.   It evaluates whether auditory training programs, such as Fast ForWord, can alleviate the auditory processing deficits so frequently seen in children with autism spectrum disorders. Children with autism spectrum disorders or ASD demonstrate impairments in their use of language for social and communicative purposes.  These impairments are typically apparent prior to three years of age.

There is emerging evidence that the neural encoding of speech sounds may be impaired in some children with autism spectrum disorders leading to atypical auditory brainstem responses to speech sounds and difficulties processing speech-specific stimuli such as detecting speech in background noise. 

Since the Fast ForWord products provide auditory training including listening and sound-sequencing exercises, as well as exercises on auditory attention, auditory discrimination, phoneme discrimination, and memory, Dr Russo and her colleagues were interested in investigating the impact of the products on children with ASD.

High-functioning children with ASD who had participated in an earlier study were invited to partake in this one.   The children all had a formal diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder.  They had typical peripheral hearing, average mental abilities and average or near-average language scores.

Eleven boys with an average age of 9.2 completed the entire testing protocol and met the criteria.   The children were then given the option of taking part in the intensive auditory training. Five children opted for the training and formed the experimental group.  The other six children who opted not to take part in the training were willing to take part in the post-test and formed the control group. There was not a significant difference between the two groups in terms of age, IQ, or language ability.

Students in the experimental group used the intense intervention: the Fast ForWord Language Series which entailed the Fast ForWord Language product for an average for 20 days followed by Fast ForWord Language to Reading for an average of 32 days.

Auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) and Event-Related Potentials (ERP’s) were recorded from both groups.  These tests measure the size and the timing of electrical activity that occurs in the brainstem and brain in response to a sound.  In this case, the sounds were synthesized vowels that were heard in the presence of background noise, as well as in quiet.  Auditory brainstem responses are subcortical events occurring less than 10 ms after the stimuli is presented while  event-related potentials are cortical events occurring a few hundred milliseconds after the stimuli is presented.  Both ABR’s and ERP’s measure the aggregate response of neurons and neither requires active involvement by the participant. 

Due to the small number of participants, and the variations between them, the analysis involved defining a “typical change” as the average change for students in the control group plus one standard deviation, and defining a “significant change” for one of the participants as a change that was more than the control’s change plus one standard deviation. 

The researchers were particularly interested in subjects that had two or more measures with significant change.  All five students improved more than one standard deviation on at least two tests. The researchers concluded that there is Initial evidence that directed auditory training may improve auditory processing in a specific population of children with ASD – specifically high-functioning children with ASD who have hearing in the typical range.

They also concluded that computer-based training may benefit some children with ASD by acting on biological processes.

Read the complete report on this research at the link below:

Nicole M Russo, N., Hornickel, J., Nicol, T. Zeckler, S. Kraus, N. Biological changes in auditory function following training in children with autism spectrum disorders. Behavioral and Brain Functions 2010, 6:60.

Related Reading:

Understanding Autism in Children

Language Skills Increase 1.8 Years After 30 Days Using Fast ForWord

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Brain Research, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Scientific Learning Research

Tags: auditory processing, autism, brain training, learning disabilities, processing rate, video

Grammar Skill Improvement with Fast ForWord Software

• May 19, 2011 by Barbara Calhoun, Ph.D

This study was part of Dr. Beth Rogowsky’s doctoral research and was published in her dissertation in 2010.  At the time of this study, Dr. Rogowsky was an experienced educator.  Returning for her doctorate at Wilkes University in Pennsylvania, Dr. Rogowsky was interested in data-driven decisions, and wanted to know whether the Fast ForWord products would improve the grammatical skills of a group of typical middle school students.  The middle school in which Dr. Rogowsky taught had four marking periods each year.  During each marking period, students took two elective courses. 

During the 2009-2010 school year, the sixth graders were randomly assigned to use Fast ForWord during one of their electives; one-fourth of the students during each marking period.  The students who used Fast ForWord during the 3^rd marking period formed the experimental group in Dr. Rogowsky’s study while the students who were scheduled to use Fast ForWord later formed the comparison group.  Students’ grammar skills were evaluated at the beginning and end of the 3^rd marking period.

Study participants were 81 sixth graders.  Group 1 consisted of 40 students who used Fast ForWord during the third marking period.  Group 2 consisted of 41 students who did not use Fast ForWord until after the study was over.  Students were assessed at the beginning and end of the study (January and April).

Using the 40-Minute protocols that require students to use the products 40 minutes a day, five days a week, the students first used Fast ForWord Literacy.  After they finished Fast ForWord Literacy, students used Fast ForWord Reading Level 2.  Students were evaluated at the start of the study, and again at the end, with the Written Expression Scale from the Oral and Written Language Scales, also known as the OWLS.  The written section evaluates students’ knowledge of convention and content.  Convention covers a variety of areas including spelling, capitalization and punctuation, linguistics, modifiers, phrases, verb form while content includes details, coherence, unity, and the presence of supporting ideas.  Students are scored on a scale where 100 is average, and the standard deviation is 15.

At the start of the study, there was not a statistically significant difference between the scores of the students in the two groups.  On average, students in both groups were a bit above the 50^th percentile which corresponds to a score of 100. However, after the experimental group used the Fast ForWord products, there was a statistically significant difference between the scores of the two groups, and there were statistically significant increases in the scores of the group that had used Fast ForWord products. The results of this study led Dr. Rogowsky to conclude that the Fast ForWord products can improve students’ grammar skills and the improvements are evident in a classwide implementation.

Rogowsky, B. (2010). The Impact of Fast ForWord® on Sixth Grade Students’ Use of Standard Edited American English. Doctor of Education dissertation, Wilkes University. 

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning, Scientific Learning Research

Tags: academic success, accelerate learning, brain training, increased test scores, middle school learning, student growth, technology in education, video, writing

Dyslexic Learners Dramatically Improve Reading Skills with Fast ForWord

• October 12, 2010 by Barbara Calhoun, Ph.D

This study was conducted by Nadine Gaab and her colleagues and was published in Restorative Neurology and Neuroscience in 2007.  Studies have shown that in adults with developmental dyslexia, there is a disruption of the left prefrontal cortex’s response to short sounds.  This is important since speech is made up of numerous short sounds and a person’s mastery of the subtle sounds of spoken language are related to reading ability. 

In this study, the researchers wanted to extend those findings to children.  They did this by investigating which regions of the children’s brain were active in response to rapid auditory stimuli, determining whether the activation patterns were similar in children with dyslexia and children with typically developing reading skills, determining whether these differences could be remediated, and determining whether the remediation also resulted in changes in language and reading scores.  A total of 45 children took part in this study.  The average age was 10 ½.   22 of the children had developmental dyslexia and 23 had typically developing reading skills.  All students were behaviorally and physiologically assessed.   Some students then used the Fast ForWord Language product, an intensive intervention that builds rapid auditory processing, phonological, and linguistic skills.  Fast ForWord Language, is an intensive computerized product that uses sounds and processed language to help build students’ foundational learning skills including their auditory processing skills, their memory, their attention, and their sequencing.  The version of the product that was used did not include any orthographic stimuli -- there was no text, it was all sounds and pictures. 

The students used the Fast ForWord Language product for 100 minutes a day, five days a week, for eight weeks.  The behavioral tests evaluated students’ early reading skills and reading achievement. They were: The Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing, The Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, and the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test.   These tests evaluated students’ ability to manipulate the sounds in language, as well as their ability to use language in general, and their ability to read and understand words, sentences, and paragraphs.   In addition to the behavioral tests, fMRI was used to measure students’ brain activity while they were doing a task unrelated to reading and language – they were listening to sounds that change in frequency, like the sound of a whistle.  The pre-tests showed that the students with dyslexia had reading skills that were significantly below the reading scores of their typically developing peers.

After using the Fast ForWord product, students’ reading and language skills were re-evaluated.   The students had made improvements in sight-word reading and passage comprehension as well as their total language skills and phonological awareness.  These improvements were statistically significant. In addition, the students’ cortical activity was re-evaluated.  In children with dyslexia, there are no regions in the brain where they have significant differences between the cortical responses to fast transitions versus the cortical responses to slow transitions. After remediation, it was found that several regions where the differences in activation increased – more similar to the activation patterns of children with typical development.  Of particular interest is left pre-frontal region – an area that has been repeatedly shown to have different processing in children with dyslexia. The results of this study are consistent with the hypothesis that deficits in auditory processing can compromise the ability to process rapid changes in frequency such as those that occur within phonemes, and that this impairment can lead to a deficit in the phonological processing of oral language, which can lead to a reading impairment.  These results also show that the neural circuitry of children with developmental dyslexia is plastic – it can be changed.  Effective remediation can be accomplished by focusing on improving rapid auditory processing and oral language skills and results in improved reading and language skills, as well as increased brain activity in response to rapidly changing sounds. 

For more information, please see:

Sound Training Rewires Dyslexic Children's Brains For Reading (by Nadine Gaab, Ph.D.)

Sound Training Rewires Dyslexic Children's Brains For Reading (from Science Daily)

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Categories: Brain Research, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning

Tags: academic problems, brain development, dyslexia, fMRI, improving reading skills, reading intervention, remedial education, student reading growth

Students Show Improved Auditory Attention and Early Reading Skills After Fast ForWord Intervention

• October 5, 2010 by Barbara Calhoun, Ph.D

Published by Brain Research in 2008, this study was conducted at the University of Oregon by Courtney Stevens and her colleagues.

Behavioral studies have reported deficits in selective attention in children with language disorders including specific language impairments and dyslexia. The Temple et al. study observed that after Fast ForWord participation, there was increased activation in cortical areas related to attention.

This study evaluates whether intervention with the high-intensity Fast ForWord product would influence the neural mechanisms associated with selective auditory attention. This study focused on children who were 6 to 8 years old. 

The students were divided into three groups. Group 1 was made up of language impaired students who used the intervention. Group 2 was comprised of typically developing children who used the intervention. Group 3 was made up of typically developing children who did not use the intervention. 

The intervention was the Fast ForWord Language product. On average, students used it 100 minutes a day, five days a week. They ended up using it for 29 days across six weeks.

Students were behaviorally and physiologically evaluated at the start and end of the study. The behavioral measure was the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals (CELF), a measure of oral language and early reading skills. The physiological evaluation was event-related brain potentials, also known as ERPs, which are changes in the electrical activity in the brain in response to specific events, such as briefly presented tones.

In this particular study, two different stories were presented to a student, one in each ear. The stories were about different subjects, and were presented by different speakers. Students were asked to attend to the story in either the right ear, or the left ear. Selective attention can be measured by the difference in the size of the ERP to a specific sound that is presented to the attended vs. ignored ear.

There were two groups of students that received intervention. One group was language impaired and the other group was typically developing. As might be expected, students in the typically developing group had substantially higher scores than did students in the language impaired group. After the intervention, students in both groups had statistically significant improvements in their receptive language skills. The third group of typically developing students who had no intervention had initial scores were similar to those of the typically developing students who had the intervention. However, at the end of the study, there was no appreciable improvement in their receptive language skills.

Initially, students in the typically developing group could attend better than the students in the language impaired group. After the intervention, students in both groups made statistically significant improvements in their ability to attend to an event. Looking at students in the third group, typically developing students with no intervention, showed that they started out at the same level as the typically developing students who had intervention, and there was no appreciable change in their ability to attend.

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Categories: Brain Fitness, Brain Research, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning

Tags: attention, early learning, improving reading skills, intervention, reading intervention, struggling students

Increased Brain Activity in Reading-Related Areas After Using Fast ForWord Language

• September 28, 2010 by Barbara Calhoun, Ph.D

A study was done by Elise Temple and her colleagues in 2003 and was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2003. Numerous other studies have shown that when children are reading, specific parts of their brains are active. This activation can be measured using functional magnetic resonance imaging, also known as fMRI. There are differences in the physiological activity of the brains of the good readers vs the poor readers. The biggest difference is in the temporo-parietal region.

At the time of this study, Elise Temple was at Stanford University and was interested in whether these differences could be reduced. She examined whether there were interventions that could ameliorate deficits in the neural mechanisms that underlie phonological processing in children with dyslexia.

The study involved children between 8 and 12 years of age and 20 of the students had developmental dyslexia. Then data from a group of typical readers was collected to provide a comparison. These students were behaviorally and physiologically assessed at the start and end of the study. During the study, students with dyslexia used the Fast ForWord Language software product. The students used the Fast ForWord Language product for 100 minutes a day, five days a week. On average, they used the product for 28 days.

Three behavioral tests were given to the students that evaluated students’ early reading skills and reading achievement. They were: The Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing, The Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, and the Woodcock Reading Mastery Test.

These tests evaluated students’ ability to manipulate the sounds in language, as well as their ability to use language in general, and their ability to read and understand words, sentences, and paragraphs. In addition to the behavioral tests, fMRI was used to measure students’ brain activity while they were doing a reading task. As has been found by other researchers, Temple and her colleagues found that during reading tasks, typical readers had physiological activity in the temporo-parietal and frontal regions of the brain. They also found that there are differences in the physiological activity of the students with developmental dyslexia, specifically in the temporo-parietal and frontal regions.

After using the product, students’ cortical activity was re-evaluated. There were several areas that had increased activity – of specific interest were the left temporo-parietal region and the left frontal region. Both are regions that typically have reduced activity in children with dyslexia, but whose activation increased following remediation with the Fast ForWord Language product.

Corresponding with the changes in temporo-parietal activation, there were improvements in the students’ behavioral measures. The improvements in receptive and expressive language skills, as well as rapid naming, which tests rapid recall abilities, were all statistically significant. There were also improvements in other reading skills including sight word reading, decoding, and passage comprehension. Again, these improvements were statistically significant.

The results of this study lead Temple and her colleagues to conclude that students with dyslexia have reduced cortical activity in the temporo-parietal and inferior frontal regions. The activation becomes more typical when students undergo intensive remediation and that the changes in cortical activation are correlated with improvements in early reading skills.

For more information, please take a look at the study done by Elise Temple and her colleagues. If you have questions about any of our products, please contact us.

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Categories: Brain Research, Fast ForWord, Reading & Learning

Tags: dyslexia, fMRI, struggling readers, struggling students