A testimonial by a mother who was astonished by the surprising reasons her son fell further and further behind in learning. Why my son fell further and further behind in learning will shock you as much as it did me. I thought it was simply his personality.

Why are Test Score’s Falling Further Behind?

Year after year, I saw my son gradually fall further behind in reading comprehension. He never liked to read even though he passed his phonetics reading program and successfully decoded words, read sentences, and then whole paragraphs. After each annual achievement test, I saw his reading comprehension scores fall further and further behind.

At first, I required him to follow a health program to rid his body of yeast and confirmed that he was yeast-free by a medical practitioner who performed a blood analysis. Although I felt this was an important part of improving his ability to focus, he continued to fall further behind. Thankfully, I was referred to Cheri Moore by a friend who told me how Cheri used brain integration techniques to help smart kids who were doing poorly in school. Wow! Her screening and support to referrals helped us understand why he was falling further behind.

Surprising Observation

With Cheri’s help, my son stopped falling further behind and began to catch up. However, I was surprised when Cheri noticed he became fatigued while listening to her instructions; he was taking a standardized achievement test. This was a surprise to me; I thought he was an auditory learner. I was amazed as she showed me the list of auditory processing behavioral characteristics. He had many of them.

An Unknown Hearing Loss

At Cheri’s recommendation, my son completed a hearing evaluation. I was astonished to learn the root of why my son gradually fell further behind. He had a mild hearing loss on low and high frequencies with excellent hearing on other frequencies. Hearing loss! That explained his learning difficulties. We were told his hearing loss was not severe enough to qualify him for a hearing assistance device.

But, I was puzzled why he was an auditory learner. With Cheri’s zest to find answers, that puzzled was solved later. But, first our focus was on strengthening his hearing system.

After just ten programs over a five-day period, my son’s hearing evaluation showed that he heard in the normal range on all frequencies except two. Cheri cautioned me that his unique type of hearing loss meant he may regress. Meaning he may need auditory integration training once a year and recommended a yearly hearing test.

The Benefits of Two Auditory Integration Training Programs, Writing Eights, and Integrative Exercises:

• Reading comprehension on grade level
• Excelled academically in formal logic and Latin
• Improved ability to express himself
• Joined his high school speech and debate club. He won several awards including being a semifinalist at the year-end regional invitational tournament. The most amazing thing is that he enjoyed it.

Follow Up: Is He Falling Further Behind?

As promised, Cheri continues to follow up concerning his progress. She asked if he had stopped falling further behind? Yes! In fact, he was excelling.

Once he began college, he noticed some difficulties and asked me to contact Cheri. He was struggling again to keep up, not fall further behind in class. I was thankful when she agreed to meet with him. Cheri quickly built a rapport with my now adult son and completed testing that confirmed strong auditory processing skills.

She shared there was another type of hearing test that may reveal additional hearing loss explaining his difficulties listening when there was background noise and/or speech. Testing of his outer cochlear hairs showed additional hearing loss. When combined with his other type of hearing loss, he qualified for hearing aids. We are saving money to purchase them and looking forward to school becoming a bit easier.

This is what the outer hair cells do. I sure wish they had tested them years ago when they found typical hearing loss.

I am so thankful Cheri kept learning and also screened him for visual processing difficulties. Testing by a neurorehabilitation optometrist found that he worked too hard to keep his vision clear while reading making comprehension more difficult. His vision also blurred when he looked from one place to another. That is why he was unable to easily take notes and listen while watching a PowerPoint presentation at the front of the classroom. Now I understood why he was an auditory learner despite his hearing loss. We are so excited for him because school became easier after just two months of vision therapy. He no longer worries about falling further behind.

A Very Thankful Mother, 2014