Fast ForWord
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Fast ForWord is a family of reading-intervention software products that build learning capacity by applying neuroscience principles to strengthen cognitive skills.
Fast ForWord software was developed and is commercially distributed by Scientific Learning Corporation, which became a public company in 1997. Through the development of improved neuro-cognitive skills, these products create fast, effective, and enduring results that improve users’ reading and learning abilities.
The Fast ForWord products are based on over 30 years of scientific research into the way the brain learns. The products evolved from the work of noted research scientists Drs. Michael Merzenich and Bill Jenkins at the University of California, San Francisco, and Drs. Paula Tallal and Steven Miller at Rutgers University. Their research collaboration resulted in several key findings. First, they established that the core cognitive and linguistic attributes (Memory, Attention, Processing and Sequencing) that define a student’s ability to benefit from classroom instruction can be successfully improved through intensive intervention using advanced technologies. For example, with the help of computers, the complex speech sounds in sentences -- such as phonemes -- could be slowed down and digitally enhanced so that they could be easily differentiated. The scientists discovered that by using this acoustically modified speech technology in an intensive, adaptive product, students could build a wide range of critical language and reading skills such as phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, decoding, syntax, grammar, and other skills that had previously been inaccessible to them. Scientific Learning presents on its website many studies comparing students before and after the use of the product, and many of these studies suggest that substantial gains may occur. For example, in a study on Australian speech therapy students, the average improvement was from the 14th to the 32nd percentile. [1] However, this study (along with others cited on the Scientific Learning website) compared students before and after treatment, and lacked randomization. Thus, they cannot indicate whether the gains are genuine effects of treatment with Fast ForWord, or merely gains resulting from maturation or by other instruction the students may be undergoing, or possibly practice effects on the assessment tests themselves. Recent research on Fast ForWord focuses only on "gold-standard" randomized controlled trials and show more objective and positive results.
Dr. Merzenich, who is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and is also the Chief Scientific Officer for Posit Science, and Dr. Jenkins (currently Senior Vice President of Product Development at Scientific Learning) are internationally known for their research in the science of brain plasticity, which is the concept that the brain changes as we learn new skills.
Drs. Tallal and Miller are experts in research on the neurological basis of language and reading development and their disorders, such as dyslexia. Dr. 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. Dr. Miller, currently 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.
Some specific foundational research:
1. Temple E., Deutsch GK, Poldrack RA, Miller SL, Tallal P, Merzenich MM, Gabrieli JDE (2003). Neural deficits in children with dyslexia ameliorated by behavioral remediation: evidence from functional MRI. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100 (5):2860-2865.
2. Tallal P (2000). The Science of Literacy: From the Laboratory to the Classroom. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 97 (6): 2402-2404.
3. Miller SL, Linn N, Tallal P, Merzenich MM, Jenkins WM (1999). Acoustically modified speech and language training: A relationship between auditory word discrimination training and measures of language outcomes, Reeducation Orthophonique, 197: 159-182.
4. Miller SL, Delaney TV, Tallal P, (1998). Speech and other central auditory processes: insights from cognitive neuroscience, in LR Squire & SM Kosslyn (eds.) Findings and Current Opinion in Cognitive Neuroscience. MIT Press, Boston, MA.
5. Temple E., Poldrack RA, Protopapas A, Nagarajan S, Salz T, Tallal P, Merzenich M.M, Gabrieli JDE. (2000). Disruption of the neural response to rapid acoustic stimuli in dyslexia: evidence from functional MRI. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 97 (25):13907-13912.
6. Merzenich MM, Jenkins WM, Johnston P, Schreiner CE, Miller SL, & Tallal P (1996). Temporal processing deficits of language-learning impaired children ameliorated by training. Science, 271:77-80.
7. Tallal P, Miller SL, Bedi G, Byma G, Wang X, Nagarajan SS, Schreiner C, Jenkins WM, Merzenich MM (1996). Language comprehension in language-learning impaired children improved with acoustically modified speech. Science 271:81-84.
There are 10 Fast ForWord products; each builds specific skills that academically advance the student. In addition, there is Fast ForWord Progress Tracker, an online accountability tool that allows educators to monitor student progress and results.
The products are:
- Fast ForWord Language Basics
- Fast ForWord Language
- Fast ForWord Middle & High School
- Fast ForWord Language to Reading
- Fast ForWord to Reading Prep
- Fast ForWord to Reading 1
- Fast ForWord to Reading 2
- Fast ForWord to Reading 3
- Fast ForWord to Reading 4
- Fast ForWord to Reading 5
- Fast ForWord Progress Tracker
