• The First Client
• Other Clients

The First Client

Jonah

1. diagnosed with congenital deafness at 9 months
2. diagnosed with Autistic Spectrum Disorder at 2 1/2 years
3. sign language at 9 months
4. cochlear implant at 18 months
5. disrimimating among all English speech sounds by age 4
6. producing all English speech sounds by age 6

His autistic profile

1. standard interventions for autism don't work for him
2. bright: spelling words and multiplying numbers by age 3
3. aware: does science experiments and links wires and switches into circuits
4. extremely socially disconnected until recently
5. grammar skills lag behind thinking skills
6. sample utterance: "First person come out of what?"
7. translation: "Who or what gave birth to the first human?"

Jonah and GrammarTrainer

1. In June, 2003 started on exercises like this one from lesson 1
2. By November, 2003 doing exercises like this one from lesson 18
3. By March, 2004 doing GrammarTrainer2 and exercises like this one from lesson 1
4. By November, 2004 doing GrammarTrainer2 and exercises like this one from lesson 25
5. By September, 2005 doing GrammarTrainer3 and exercises like this one from lesson 23
6. By January, 2006 doing GrammarTrainer4 and exercises like this one from lesson 1
7. By April, 2006, completed GrammarTrainer4 , now done with all four levels, all 109 lessons, and hundreds and hundreds of exercises.

As a result of GrammarTrainer

1. singular versus plural nouns
2. adjective phrases like bigger than/as big as/not as big as/the biggest
3. most verb tenses: present, past, future, complex tenses with past participles
4. all the pronouns: he/him/his, she/her, it, they/their, I/me/my, you/your, we/us/our
5. a variety of prepositional phrases
6. a variety of time phrases like last week, in three days, since, until
7. a variety of complex sentence structures (e.g., How scared the girl is depends on how high she climbs.)
8. a variety of complex questions (e.g., What did the boy take out from behind the box?)
9. reported speech with first-, second- and third-person pronouns (e.g., He asked me which of her shoes I tied.)

Every day speech

1. expresses many new, complex ideas
2. more responsive to people's questions
3. asks more questions
4. sample question after nine months with GrammarTrainer: "Why did Daddy lock the porch door with the key?"
5. after a year and a half: "If I don't do 15 minutes of reading, then the teacher will not know."
6. after two years: "Remember, earlier you told me I can have ice cream."
7. after two and a half years: "Should I have shared with Kyle?"; "If I keep downloading, then what happens?"; "Are you going to ask me what I like to do before I go to bed?"

Other Clients

So far approximately 30 other clients have been trying out the software. Most have profiles similar to Jonah, involving high functioning autism, and/or hyperlexia, and/or semantic pragmatic disorder, and/or other unspecified difficulties with grammar. After just 2-3 months with GrammarTrainer parents of these children are reporting significant progress. Here's what some of them are saying:

1. Grammar Trainer is going so well I wish we had it for math, too. It is the PERFECT way to teach Nat. We are on lesson 10, and he now picks up the way to respond very quickly, using captial letters, pronouns, the whole bit! I love it!!! I never thought we'd get this far. (Susan Senator in Massachusetts, author of Making Peace with Autism : One Family's Story of Struggle, Discovery, and Unexpected Gifts)
2. "The Grammar Trainer program has really benefited my son. I have noticed that he no longer has the occasional pronoun reversals and uses his words more appropriately." (Catherine Swanson in Clinton, Utah)
3. "This program is much better than other software programs I have tried. My son is making a lot of progress." (Lan Gao in New Jersey)
4. "Our son is making a few more complete verbal sentences rather than just phrases and has gotten more conversational." (Ron Wang in Washington State)
5. "My son loves the GrammarTrainer! We have not had a single problem with motivation." (C. Clark in Kansas City)
6. "I really like the program and look forward to the more advanced lessons." (E.M. in Richmond, Virginia)
7. "A friend we haven't seen in a while came over and my son asked her lots of "where" and "what" questions! I think that this is a result of the question work he has done with GrammarTrainer." (Jill Harrison in Colorado)
8. "Our son's school teacher noticed he is adding verbs into his daily talking. He is using longer sentences to express himself." (Dawn Huo in Washington State)
9. "A really great program and definitely has improved my son's language and his written work." (Annette Vogt in Ontario)
10. "My daughter continues to progress. Thank you so much for this program. It's exactly what she needed." (Mary Lou Zambrano in Florida)