PACE / Orton Gilligham reading remediation

My son is in 2nd grade and is beginning to have a moderate degree of difficulty keeping up. He has PDD-NOS
and has been through lots of various programs. He started at 2 1/2 with an intensive behavioral program
(ABA, VBA, RDI) coupled with Speech/OT, Therapeutic Listening, Earobics, and just competed the first two levels of Fast ForWord. He is having most diffculty with reading comprehension, math logic/word problems,
and just keeping up with the classwork. A recent evaluation through a learning center indicated a real deficit in working memeory and processing speed. Their recommendations are PACE followed by a multi-sensory
reading remedation program (they use Wilson). I want to make sure we use our resources and, more importantly,his time to help him make the most progress.
The PACE program is $5,500 and 60 hours and their fee for tutoring is $65. The learning center has provided me with their internal data showing their students test scores improved after the PACE program. What I'd like to
see is research to support that these skills generalize
to the classroom. They say they have that, but have yet
to provide it to me. The school district is also recommending moving him to a learning support classroom for reading remediation. They use the Orton-Gillingham based Preventing Academic Failure program. It's implemented in small groups with a 20 minute block of direct intruction followed by a 20 minute activity with
the teacher's aide. I'm not sure this will be intensive or individulized enough for him to make meaningful progress. I'm also concerned about how the change in environment will effect him emotionally/socially. He's very aware and dislikes being singled out and is currently very happy at school. I have to consider the impact this will have on him. At this point, I'm considering not changing his school environment and getting him help privately. Any help would be greatly appreciated...I'm feeling very overwhelmed!

Thanks,
Linda

I am trained in PACE and Orton-Gillingham. I've also seen PAF, although I haven't used it.

I seriously doubt that 40 minutes per day of PAF in a small group setting would provide enough intensity for your son, so I would definitely look for a private tutor. Where I am, well-qualified OG tutors charge $50 per hour and most require at least two hours of tutoring per week. You can call your local branch of IDA to find qualified tutors in your area.

How many weeks of PACE training are you talking about? And how many hours of provider training per week? With 60 hours of training, it sounds as if you are talking about doing the entire program in-office with the provider.

It is actually more common for PACE to be done as a team by provider and parent. The standard program consists of three one-hour sessions per week with the provider, plus 3 to 9 hours of homework training by parents. (The provider spends the last 5 minutes of a session showing parents which exercises to work on at home.) Some children benefit from doing the program longer than 12 weeks, but the usual approach is to schedule 12 weeks and then make a decision to extend or not at the end, when it's more clear whether progress has halted or there's more to gain.

Are there any other PACE providers in your area? If you haven't already, you can contact the company (http://www.processingskills.com) to ask.

To be frank, the PACE kit from the company is not very expensive. It is the provider hours that make up almost all of the cost of the PACE program. Since most PACE providers provide pre-testing and post-testing for free, it looks as if your provider is charging somewhere in the neighborhood of $90-100 per hour. Provider costs vary greatly from one part of the country to another, and even among individual providers, so you may be able to find another provider who charges less per hour.

As for generalization of gains to gains in the classroom, it is my opinion that this depends greatly on IQ. The higher the IQ, the easier it is to generalize. The lower the IQ, the more difficult it is to generalize. Children with low IQ can still benefit greatly from PACE. In fact, this may be one of the few programs that give them overall improvements in intellectual function. However, in general they will be less able to generalize gains from the exercises to other areas of their lives.

Even if your provider can give you numbers, they are likely not to be statistically significant. Also, follow-up reporting (say of academic gains) is virtually non-existent. What would probably give your best indication of usefulness would be if the provider could give you phone numbers of other parents who have put a PDD-NOS child through the program. This is often not possible, but worth asking about. A parent who has put a child with similar problems through PACE could provide you with some insight into how much you could expect from the program.

Nancy