Fast ForWord
Encyclopedia
Fast ForWord is a family of educational software
products intended to enhance cognitive skills of children, especially focused on developing "phonological awareness" (discussed below). It is marketed as a therapy for strengthening the skills of memory, attention, processing rate, and sequencing for children. It evolved from studies that showed children with abnormal temporal processing and language learning impairment could have their phonological awareness
improved in parallel with their temporal processing. It is currently marketed for children with a broad range of reading problems, and perhaps other cognitive disorder
s as well. Fast ForWord software was developed and is commercially distributed by Scientific Learning Corporation, which became a public company in 1999.
consists of the three series of 11 individual products:
Fast ForWord uses computerized exercises in which children identify computer-generated speech sounds (although the latest versions of the product apparently includes others kinds of computerized training as well). Participants spend 30 to 100 minutes a day, five days a week, for four to 16 weeks using the products
In the speech-sound drills, the training program starts off with sounds that have been altered by computer processing. These processed sounds preserve the frequency content of normal speech sounds, but are slowed down and have artificially exaggerated differences. These changes make the task easier for children with slower than normal temporal processing, but paradoxically are more difficult to discriminate for temporal processing normals. As the subject progresses, these differences are reduced to make the games more challenging. The premise of this approach is that the drills help students with a wide range of language problems develop enhanced phonological awareness, and that this enhanced awareness will have numerous benefits for their language functioning, including especially reading. The method of utilizing exaggerated differences in training a person to tell two things apart is commonly referred to in psychology as "fading". Fading has been widely used beginning in the 1950s in many areas of behavioral research and treatment, including animal learning (e.g., Lawrence, 1952), behavioral therapy of retarded individuals (e.g., Irvin & Bellamy, 1977), and problems with perception of speech sounds (e.g., Jamieson & Morosan, 1989).
Several studies have been published that have evaluated Fast ForWord Language using randomized controlled trial designs. In 2004, Cecelia Rouse and Alan Krueger from Princeton University published a study of Fast ForWord in a large urban school in the Northeast. Their sample consisted of 374 students who scored in the bottom 20% on the state's reading test. They found that although certain aspects of the children's language skills were slightly improved, "it does not appear that these gains translate … into actual reading skills" (Rouse & Krueger, 2004, p. 2).
A second, and larger, randomized study was carried out by Geoffrey D. Borman
, now at the University of Wisconsin School of Education, and colleagues These investigators studied 415 second and seventh graders performing far below national reading standards. Students randomly assigned to receive Fast ForWord treatment did not show statistically significant improvement in most of the reading measures examined, although there were a few small gains for certain subgroups, and a significant fraction of students with the lowest language test scores dropped out. The study authors concluded that "the Fast Forword Language program did not, in general, help students in these eight schools improve their language and reading comprehension outcomes" (Borman 2009, p. 100). However, in their discussion they noted that the "supplementary analyses, which examined the causal effects of participaton, revealed that when the middle school teachers and students remained committed and more faithfully achieved the completion standards set by Scientific Learning Corporation, the students exhibited statistically significant improvements in reading comprehension. Although evidence from this study and from the study conducted by Rouse and Krueger (2004) suggests that the demanding Fast ForWord training regimen can be difficult to schedule and implement in school-based settings, our results provide some evidence for seventh graders to suggest that when it is successfully carried out, students' literacy outcomes may improve".
Scientific Learning Corporation's website reports one study that used a randomized design involving 208 elementary school students. This study found that Fast ForWord treatment enhanced performance on the Test of Phonological Awareness (TOPA).
The study included subjects at all reading levels, not just those deemed impaired, and used both first and second graders. The average improvement on the TOPA was half a standard deviation across the board. When the student year was entered into their statistical model, only the first graders showed an improvement. However, the study does not report whether these early reading skill improvements translate into changes in reading or other language-related functions.
In early studies that pre-dated the commercial development of Fast ForWord, Merzenich et al. (1996) and Tallal et al. (1996) reported that 8–16 hours of training using Fast ForWord produced "1.5 to two years of progress in reading skills", according to Tallal, quoted in Newsweek (Begley & Check, 2000). These age-equivalent improvements are based on their published data expressed in the same format (Science. 1996 Jan 5;271(5245):81-4). In other words, these early studies tried to compare how much these people improved compared to what they were expected to improve had they not used this program.
A longitudinal study
was undertaken by the Schultz Center for Teaching & Leadership in partnership with Duval County Public Schools
to determine "whether, and to what extent, participation in Fast ForWord over a period of time could be shown to have produced increased student gains on a state-mandated assessment of reading proficiency". The author’s analysis used developmental scale scores (DSS) in reading from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test
(FCAT) in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008, as well as for the three-year period from 2005–2008. A study group of 5,219 students who used the Fast ForWord products was evaluated against a comparison group of 5,010 students who did not use the products, with care taken to match the demographic features of the groups as closely as possible. The study found that 1) the cumulative gains across the three-year span were significantly higher for the Fast ForWord group than the comparison group, as were the annual gains in the first two years of implementation (not, however, in the third year); 2) the subgroups that showed the highest gains were fourth and fifth graders, girls, and students without disabilities; 3) 52% of the Fast ForWord group achieved expected multi-year growth gains as compared to 36.1% of the comparison group, and these results were found to be statistically significant. The authors concluded, “it is clear that Fast ForWord has been successful at accelerating the reading progress made by struggling readers. It is also evident that schools generally implemented the program consistently and in a fashion that was faithful to the instructional design
intended.” The authors also noted that students who completed 2-3 products on the system
achieved optimum gains.
website in 2001 estimates the cost to a school district at $38,000 for 50 children, and Rouse and Krueger (2004) provide a similar estimate.
and Bill Jenkins at the University of California, San Francisco
, and Paula Tallal
and Steven Miller at Rutgers University
. This team started Scientific Learning shortly after publishing two papers in Science (Science. 1996 Jan 5;271(5245):77-81, and 81-84). These papers demonstrated that children who had abnormal temporal processing could be trained on software (which later evolved into Fast ForWord). This training results in 1–2 years of age equivalent improvement in language reception measures. The magnitude of the improvement, subject by subject, was correlated with their improvement in temporal processing. In other words, these studies showed that software like Fast ForWord, when applied to subjects with abnormally poor temporal processing and reading skills, could remediate both their temporal processing and language reception powerfully, and further suggest that temporal processing abnormalities can form a perceptual bottleneck in learning to comprehend language. The studies also included control groups and found significant differences in language reception improvements between control and experimental groups.
The founders of the Scientific Learning Corporation have impressive scientific credentials. Michael Merzenich, who is a member of the National Academy of Sciences
and is also the Chief Scientific Officer for Posit Science, and Bill Jenkins (currently Chief Scientific Officer at Scientific Learning) are internationally known for their research on brain plasticity, which is the concept that the brain changes as we learn new skills. Paula Tallal is currently co-director of the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience at Rutgers and an active participant on many scientific advisory boards and government committees for both developmental language disorders and learning disabilities. She has published over 150 papers on the topic of language and learning and is the recipient of national and international honors. Steven Miller, former Senior Vice President of Research at Scientific Learning, has extensive experience in organizing clinical research studies and conducting longitudinal studies of children who have language and reading problems.
Educational software
Educational software is computer software, the primary purpose of which is teaching or self-learning.-Early History, 1940s - 1970s:The use of computer hardware and software in education and training dates to the early 1940s, when American researchers developed flight simulators which used analog...
products intended to enhance cognitive skills of children, especially focused on developing "phonological awareness" (discussed below). It is marketed as a therapy for strengthening the skills of memory, attention, processing rate, and sequencing for children. It evolved from studies that showed children with abnormal temporal processing and language learning impairment could have their phonological awareness
Phonological awareness
Phonological awareness refers to an individual's awareness of the phonological structure, or sound structure, of spoken words. Phonological awareness is an important and reliable predictor of later reading ability and has, therefore, been the focus of much research.- Overview :Phonological...
improved in parallel with their temporal processing. It is currently marketed for children with a broad range of reading problems, and perhaps other cognitive disorder
Cognitive disorder
Most common mental disorders affect cognitive functions, mainly memory processing, perception and problem solving. The most direct cognitive disorders are amnesia, dementia and delirium. Others include anxiety disorders such as phobias, panic disorders, obsessive–compulsive disorder, generalized...
s as well. Fast ForWord software was developed and is commercially distributed by Scientific Learning Corporation, which became a public company in 1999.
Product line
The Fast ForWord family of productsFamily branding
Family branding is a marketing strategy that involves selling several related products under one brand name. Family branding is also known as umbrella branding...
consists of the three series of 11 individual products:
- Fast ForWord LANGUAGE Series
- Fast ForWord Language Basics
- Fast ForWord Language v2
- Fast ForWord Language to Reading v2
- Fast ForWord LITERACY Series
- Fast ForWord Literacy
- Fast ForWord Literacy Advanced
- Fast ForWord READING Series
- Fast ForWord Reading Prep
- Fast ForWord Reading 1
- Fast ForWord Reading 2
- Fast ForWord Reading 3
- Fast ForWord Reading 4
- Fast ForWord Reading 5
Fast ForWord uses computerized exercises in which children identify computer-generated speech sounds (although the latest versions of the product apparently includes others kinds of computerized training as well). Participants spend 30 to 100 minutes a day, five days a week, for four to 16 weeks using the products
In the speech-sound drills, the training program starts off with sounds that have been altered by computer processing. These processed sounds preserve the frequency content of normal speech sounds, but are slowed down and have artificially exaggerated differences. These changes make the task easier for children with slower than normal temporal processing, but paradoxically are more difficult to discriminate for temporal processing normals. As the subject progresses, these differences are reduced to make the games more challenging. The premise of this approach is that the drills help students with a wide range of language problems develop enhanced phonological awareness, and that this enhanced awareness will have numerous benefits for their language functioning, including especially reading. The method of utilizing exaggerated differences in training a person to tell two things apart is commonly referred to in psychology as "fading". Fading has been widely used beginning in the 1950s in many areas of behavioral research and treatment, including animal learning (e.g., Lawrence, 1952), behavioral therapy of retarded individuals (e.g., Irvin & Bellamy, 1977), and problems with perception of speech sounds (e.g., Jamieson & Morosan, 1989).
Efficacy of Fast ForWord
Fast ForWord Language evolved from computer games that were demonstrated to deliver a 1-2 year age equivalent improvement in phonological awareness to children who had abnormally slow temporal processing.Randomized controlled trials
Drawing inferences about the effectiveness of an intervention is done most accurately with randomized controlled trials with appropriate outcome measurements. In this kind of study, individuals are either randomly assigned to receive an intervention or to receive whatever would be the conventional treatment. The outcome measure must be a set of pre-defined measures that assess the severity of the complaints for which treatment is being administered. This is the basis of the FDA's evaluation of new drugs, and is generally viewed as the "gold standard" for any kind of intervention research. Optimally, such a trial should be run with the so-called intention to treat procedure, which helps to prevent drop-outs from obscuring the results of the study.Several studies have been published that have evaluated Fast ForWord Language using randomized controlled trial designs. In 2004, Cecelia Rouse and Alan Krueger from Princeton University published a study of Fast ForWord in a large urban school in the Northeast. Their sample consisted of 374 students who scored in the bottom 20% on the state's reading test. They found that although certain aspects of the children's language skills were slightly improved, "it does not appear that these gains translate … into actual reading skills" (Rouse & Krueger, 2004, p. 2).
A second, and larger, randomized study was carried out by Geoffrey D. Borman
Geoffrey D. Borman
Geoffrey D. Borman is an American quantitative methodologist and policy analyst. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1997 and is currently a professor of education and sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Deputy Director of the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s...
, now at the University of Wisconsin School of Education, and colleagues These investigators studied 415 second and seventh graders performing far below national reading standards. Students randomly assigned to receive Fast ForWord treatment did not show statistically significant improvement in most of the reading measures examined, although there were a few small gains for certain subgroups, and a significant fraction of students with the lowest language test scores dropped out. The study authors concluded that "the Fast Forword Language program did not, in general, help students in these eight schools improve their language and reading comprehension outcomes" (Borman 2009, p. 100). However, in their discussion they noted that the "supplementary analyses, which examined the causal effects of participaton, revealed that when the middle school teachers and students remained committed and more faithfully achieved the completion standards set by Scientific Learning Corporation, the students exhibited statistically significant improvements in reading comprehension. Although evidence from this study and from the study conducted by Rouse and Krueger (2004) suggests that the demanding Fast ForWord training regimen can be difficult to schedule and implement in school-based settings, our results provide some evidence for seventh graders to suggest that when it is successfully carried out, students' literacy outcomes may improve".
Scientific Learning Corporation's website reports one study that used a randomized design involving 208 elementary school students. This study found that Fast ForWord treatment enhanced performance on the Test of Phonological Awareness (TOPA).
The study included subjects at all reading levels, not just those deemed impaired, and used both first and second graders. The average improvement on the TOPA was half a standard deviation across the board. When the student year was entered into their statistical model, only the first graders showed an improvement. However, the study does not report whether these early reading skill improvements translate into changes in reading or other language-related functions.
Non-randomized studies
The Scientific Learning Corporation website http://www.scilearn.com lists many dozens of studies with positive results that do not use the "gold standard" randomized designs, but instead compare children's performance before and after treatment. For example, in a study on Australian children age 6-13, the average improvement was from the 14th to the 32nd percentile. These kinds of studies are difficult to interpret because children with reading problems may show some degree of improvement over time. Such improvements could result both from maturation and from other experiences in and out of the classroom (which might even include other treatments or tutoring provided on top of the therapy being evaluated). An untreated control group is the best way to isolate the impact of the treatment.In early studies that pre-dated the commercial development of Fast ForWord, Merzenich et al. (1996) and Tallal et al. (1996) reported that 8–16 hours of training using Fast ForWord produced "1.5 to two years of progress in reading skills", according to Tallal, quoted in Newsweek (Begley & Check, 2000). These age-equivalent improvements are based on their published data expressed in the same format (Science. 1996 Jan 5;271(5245):81-4). In other words, these early studies tried to compare how much these people improved compared to what they were expected to improve had they not used this program.
A longitudinal study
Longitudinal study
A longitudinal study is a correlational research study that involves repeated observations of the same variables over long periods of time — often many decades. It is a type of observational study. Longitudinal studies are often used in psychology to study developmental trends across the...
was undertaken by the Schultz Center for Teaching & Leadership in partnership with Duval County Public Schools
Duval County Public Schools
Duval County Public Schools is the public school district for Duval County, Jacksonville, Florida. As of 2011, the district had an enrollment of over 123,000 students, making it the 15th largest school district in the United States, and 6th largest school district in Florida...
to determine "whether, and to what extent, participation in Fast ForWord over a period of time could be shown to have produced increased student gains on a state-mandated assessment of reading proficiency". The author’s analysis used developmental scale scores (DSS) in reading from the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test
Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test
The Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, or the FCAT , is the standardized test used in the primary and secondary public schools of Florida...
(FCAT) in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2008, as well as for the three-year period from 2005–2008. A study group of 5,219 students who used the Fast ForWord products was evaluated against a comparison group of 5,010 students who did not use the products, with care taken to match the demographic features of the groups as closely as possible. The study found that 1) the cumulative gains across the three-year span were significantly higher for the Fast ForWord group than the comparison group, as were the annual gains in the first two years of implementation (not, however, in the third year); 2) the subgroups that showed the highest gains were fourth and fifth graders, girls, and students without disabilities; 3) 52% of the Fast ForWord group achieved expected multi-year growth gains as compared to 36.1% of the comparison group, and these results were found to be statistically significant. The authors concluded, “it is clear that Fast ForWord has been successful at accelerating the reading progress made by struggling readers. It is also evident that schools generally implemented the program consistently and in a fashion that was faithful to the instructional design
Instructional design
Instructional Design is the practice of creating "instructional experiences which make the acquisition of knowledge and skill more efficient, effective, and appealing." The process consists broadly of determining the current state and needs of the learner, defining the end goal of instruction, and...
intended.” The authors also noted that students who completed 2-3 products on the system
System
System is a set of interacting or interdependent components forming an integrated whole....
achieved optimum gains.
Marketing and cost of Fast ForWord
The Scientific Learning Corporation website does not appear to state what specific diagnostic indications the product is being marketed for. The search engine keywords listed on the website include "improve reading scores improve reading skills" which suggests that the key market includes children with virtually any sort of reading problem. However, the website also describes results involving "pervasive developmental disorders" (a term usually applied to children with problems in the autism spectrum), attention deficit disorder, and quotes testimonials relating to the "broad range" of students supposedly helped by the product. One consulting group'swebsite in 2001 estimates the cost to a school district at $38,000 for 50 children, and Rouse and Krueger (2004) provide a similar estimate.
History of Fast ForWord
The Fast ForWord products evolved from the work of a number of scientists, including Michael MerzenichMichael Merzenich
Michael M. Merzenich is a professor emeritus neuroscientist at the University of California, San Francisco. His contributions to the field are numerous. He took the sensory cortex maps developed by his predecessors like Archie Tunturi, Clinton Woolsey, Vernon Mountcastle, Wade Marshall, and Philip...
and Bill Jenkins at the University of California, San Francisco
University of California, San Francisco
The University of California, San Francisco is one of the world's leading centers of health sciences research, patient care, and education. UCSF's medical, pharmacy, dentistry, nursing, and graduate schools are among the top health science professional schools in the world...
, and Paula Tallal
Paula Tallal
Paula Tallal is a Rutgers Board of Governors Professor of Neuroscience and co-director of the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey....
and Steven Miller at Rutgers University
Rutgers University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...
. This team started Scientific Learning shortly after publishing two papers in Science (Science. 1996 Jan 5;271(5245):77-81, and 81-84). These papers demonstrated that children who had abnormal temporal processing could be trained on software (which later evolved into Fast ForWord). This training results in 1–2 years of age equivalent improvement in language reception measures. The magnitude of the improvement, subject by subject, was correlated with their improvement in temporal processing. In other words, these studies showed that software like Fast ForWord, when applied to subjects with abnormally poor temporal processing and reading skills, could remediate both their temporal processing and language reception powerfully, and further suggest that temporal processing abnormalities can form a perceptual bottleneck in learning to comprehend language. The studies also included control groups and found significant differences in language reception improvements between control and experimental groups.
The founders of the Scientific Learning Corporation have impressive scientific credentials. Michael Merzenich, who is a member of the National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...
and is also the Chief Scientific Officer for Posit Science, and Bill Jenkins (currently Chief Scientific Officer at Scientific Learning) are internationally known for their research on brain plasticity, which is the concept that the brain changes as we learn new skills. Paula Tallal is currently co-director of the Center for Molecular and Behavioral Neuroscience at Rutgers and an active participant on many scientific advisory boards and government committees for both developmental language disorders and learning disabilities. She has published over 150 papers on the topic of language and learning and is the recipient of national and international honors. Steven Miller, former Senior Vice President of Research at Scientific Learning, has extensive experience in organizing clinical research studies and conducting longitudinal studies of children who have language and reading problems.
See also
- Alternative therapies for developmental and learning disabilitiesAlternative therapies for developmental and learning disabilitiesAlternative therapies for developmental and learning disabilities include a range of practices used in the treatment of dyslexia, ADHD, Asperger syndrome, autism, Down syndrome and other developmental and learning disabilities. Treatments include changes in diet, dietary supplements, biofeedback,...
- List of alternative therapies for developmental and learning disabilities
Distributors
- Innovative Therapies, PC Providers of Fast ForWord in UK
- Neuron Learning website UK & Ireland provider of Fast ForWord
- Sonic Learning, Australian providers of Fast ForWord
- LearnFast Australia Pty Ltd providers of Fast ForWord
- BrainFit Studio Pte Ltd providers of Fast ForWord in Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Viet Nam
- Gemm Learning, US and Canada provider of Fast ForWord for home use
- Accomplished Learning Centres, Western Canada Fast ForWord provider: in-house and off-site