Also known as… What…I Knew I Could Do It!

Earlier this summer, I was blessed enough to receive a copy of Super Duper Inc.’s HearBuilder Following Directions CD. My life (well…okay, THERAPY life) has not been the same. 

My first part of the review is here...and part two is here…

Now we’re going to get to the nitty-gritty of the software.

I was impressed with the software from the get-go. I had a bit of difficulty with figuring out how the reward game worked, but eventually (and after Super Duper explained it) I realized I was making it WAY harder than it needed to be…(and I do mean WAY harder!). The only good thing about this is the student was just as confused as I was!

I loved being able to adjust the settings enough to allow/not allow repetitions and to have/not have background noise. I will say, I most definitely LOVE the option of the background noise. It is exactly like a busy lower elementary classroom. Very appropriate for helping students learn how to deal with those auditory distractions.

I chose two students to trial the software. The first student is one that I’ve been seeing for a few years with a phonological impairment. In the past, following directions has chosen to be difficult for him, so I thought he was a perfect candidate. The first few sessions, he was performing right about 85-90%. So I turned on the background noise.  His scores dropped a bit (down to 75%) for two sessions and then picked right back up. I noticed he had a slight difficulty with some of the temporal and conditional directions. You know, those “before you do this… do this” and the “if there’s a … do this…” directions. We took a break from the software for a bit, worked on those concepts … and… the next time we worked on the software he scored 100%…and the next time…and the 3rd time. I was ecstatic! He was ecstatic!

The next client I chose to trial was a 7 year old girl. Unlike the first student, she was fairly new to me and I wasn’t sure how she would do with the software. Wow…what a difference. We started with the first part, Following Basic Directions, and she did great…went through the first few levels with absolutely no problem. Then I put the background noise on. WOW!

She dropped from a 100% average without background noise to 40% with background noise. I’m relatively certain the ones she did get right were lucky clicks.

So…I turned the background noise off and we went to the next area – Sequential directions. I expected she’d have a bit of a problem here…and I was absolutely right. She was routinely only able to get about 60-70% without the background noise. Just for the trial, I put the background noise on and she dropped to 0%. She simply could not do it.

So… we worked on following directions games in therapy, online, and with the HearBuilder software. We started with simple basic two-step directions then moved to three-step directions. Then we worked on sequential directions; again working on two-step then going to three-step directions. When she started getting up to 90% scores on the software, I turned the background noise on.

With the background noise on Following Basic Directions, she went from a 40% to a solid 90%. With Sequential Directions, she went from 0% with background noise to 70% with background noise. Obviously she still has a way to go, but it’s a definite improvement.

As of right now we haven’t targeted the more complex directions (quantitative/spatial, temporal, conditional). I expect that we will have a similar learning curve with them. I’m very excited to see how this student has already started to benefit from this software!

All in all…This software gets an excited two-thumbs up from me. The games are fun. The kids love “earning” the tools and making toys… and it really helps them learn! HearBuilder Following Directions is definitely a boost to the therapy tool kit.

I can’t wait to try the other CDs! I’m just not sure how I’ll be able to choose between Phonological Awareness and Sequences!

I’d love to hear your thoughts about which software I should requisition next…Or if you’ve used any of the three (Following Directions, Phono Awareness, Sequences) what did you think of them?

Until then…Adventure On!