Audiblox

Several weeks ago, I saw a post on our home schooling Yahoo group about an information meeting about a cognitive training program called Audiblox.  It is described on the website as:

 

… a multisensory brain-training program that enables learners to overcome learning obstacles and reach their full potential. Audiblox is founded on pedagogical research and 30 years of experience demonstrating that weak underlying cognitive skills — concentration, perception, memory and logical thinking — account for the majority of learning difficulties. Specific brain-training exercises can strengthen these weaknesses leading to increased performance in reading, spelling, writing, math and learning.

 

Audiblox is adaptable for the gifted and less gifted, can be used at home and in school, and is applicable for all age groups. It can develop the learning skills of the high school learner to a very high degree, while it can also be used to prepare the preschool child for reading and learning from as early as three years of age.

 

Audiblox is effective for a variety of learning difficulties including dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, dyspraxia and ADD/ADHD.

Paul and I decided to attend the meeting, with a view primarily to learning if, and how, this might be a helpful tool in our homeschooling with The Boy.  Although autism remains a puzzle, and he definitely does not fit into the usual categories described in the seminar, he does have difficulties, the solutions to which remain elusive.  Thus, we went, and afterward, we talked about it on the way home.  While we still were inconclusive on whether it would work with Jacob, it had become clearer that it would also help our neurotypical learners, so we concluded that we would definitely be able to “get our money’s worth” from the program.

Because it ships from South Africa, it took about 3 weeks to arrive.  However, I picked it up from the post office the other day, and after a few days of reading the manual, watching the dvd that shows how to do the various exercises, I have begun a few of them with 1-3 of the children at a time.  They seem very simple, but they’re harder than they appear!

Today I tried having Jacob build a sequence of blocks from memory, starting with 3.  He had a few seconds to look at the sequence, then he had to reproduce it, with 3-4 added each time.  He got up to 30 before he began to flag a little.  This first time the sequence was purposely not very complex, however, I may have to buy more blocks if we’re going to keep going higher from here! 🙂