Q: Is it possible to repeat Cellfield?
A: Yes. If the pre-assessment has indicated very severe reading disabilities or if the student has not reached their age level in all their reading skills after completion of the program. Your provider may recommend that Cellfield be repeated at a higher level, 6 to 12 months later.
Q: How do you know this works? Where is the proof?
A: There are several research studies that suggest Cellfield will improve reading difficulties including dyslexia:
- A peer-reviewed study, published in the Australian Journal of Learning Disabilities 2005, showed that Cellfield achieved key skill learning rates up to 40 times faster than a normal child. This is unprecedented.
- In 2009 Professor Coltheart from the Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science, supported the position that Cellfield outcome gains, were not augmented by test/retest effects, (given the two-week time interval between the before and after assessments), or by regressions towards the mean, (a statistical tendency for very low scores to improve the second time without any intervention). Coltheart’s closing comments: “There is clear statistical evidence that the Cellfield treatment improved these children’s ability to read”.
- In 2009, a study of Cellfield’s efficacy was performed at the University of Tasmania. Twelve children, all screened as being dyslexic (according to the Dyslexia Screening Test (DST) by Fawcett and Nicholson) participated. The research team recorded neural activity during reading, using Event Related Potentials (ERP) methods. Before Cellfield, none of the children showed the left hemisphere activity typical of reading. Seven children performed the Cellfield dyslexia treatment and five in the placebo group played a computer game. Both groups then had three weeks of regular schooling. The Cellfield group showed a 33% drop in their DST dyslexic risk index compared to the placebo group which dropped by only 10%. ERP results indicated neural changes only within the Cellfield group, which shifted activity from the right hemisphere to the left hemisphere “suggesting, at least neurally, a partial return to language processing which more closely resembles that of normal readers”.
Q: How can Cellfield help you overcome reading problems?
A: Some children do not hear words properly, even when they have good hearing. This is because the auditory processing in their brain is too slow and is not accurate. When this occurs the child is more likely to have slower and less accurate visual processing, even when their vision is normal. A child’s auditory and visual processing may be fast enough to read one word at a time, but not for reading fluently with good comprehension. Using educational research methods, Cellfield is designed to promote brain plasticity to improve a person’s auditory and visual processing in order to transition to reading fluency with better comprehension.
Q: What makes Cellfield different from other reading intervention programs?
A: Scientists use to believe that the brain difference that causes reading difficulty including dyslexia were hard-wired. Treatment programs for reading disorders were developed to compensate for the differences, or work around them. New research in the area of brain plasticity is now suggesting that our brain pathways can be changed! The Cellfield reading intervention program specifically aims to reroute these pathways. It is also the only program that specifically targets the auditory, the visual, and the auditory-to-visual pathways in the brain.
Q: How long does it take to complete the Cellfield Reading Program?
A: Not including the assessments, the Cellfield reading intervention program is a 12 week program and consists of two phases. Phase 1: Ten one-hour sessions to take place over a two-week period. This phase targets neural development. Phase 2: Ten one-hour sessions to take place over a ten-week period. This phase targets consolidation and transition to reading fluency.
Q: Are there other improvements?
A: Clients have reported they noticed better focus in school and with homework, greater motivation, better organization during task completion, improved confidence, and improved self-esteem. Sub-groups of children with Specific Language Impairments have also achieved improved literacy skills. Cellfield is also exploring the benefits of working with autistic clients. An autistic child with ADHD, well known and supported by this Speech Language Pathologist, completed the Cellfield program at age 8. By Cellfield standards, core skill gains were moderate, however his comprehension improved by one year, and his reading rate improved by four months, in just a few weeks. Qualified and experienced Cellfield providers have observed other improvements as well. The autistic child mentioned above sat down for his first session with severe attention difficulties, in a state of frustration, with low endurance, fatigue issues, and with ingrained avoidance strategies. Through Cellfield, he became more willing to read, experienced less frustration, and furthermore, Cellfield became a powerful tool with which to make progress with his receptive language skills.
Q: Who Can Benefit From the Cellfield Reading Intervention Program?
A: Cellfield is designed for anyone over 6 years of age:
- If their reading age appears to have reached a plateau and falls further and further behind their chronological age with each passing year.
- If they are screened as having symptoms of dyslexia.
- If they are assessed as having language disorders.
- If they have difficulty carrying out oral instructions.
- If they have poor reading, spelling and writing skills.
- If their reading age is appropriate, but cannot recall what they’ve read.
- If their reading skill are normal but they feel discomfort or suffer from fatigue when reading.
- If they have a poor working memory.
- If they feel uncomfortable looking at black letters on white paper.
- If they have eye movement control problems.