Even with the finest teachers and great effort, most people who have shown moderate to severe learning difficulties never had their problems remedied. This was the case even though they had received individual instruction, help from aides, extraordinary help from parents, tutoring, or even special program placement. Because of this failure and the amount of money, time and energy spent, several conclusions by educators and their helpers are presently being assumed. These assumptions are: 

1. There are many people who will never learn to read through phonics. 
2. Because they can't learn phonics, teach them a "sight" approach and/or through "whole language." 
3. Nothing will help poor spellers except "spell check" or a secretary. 
4. Those who comprehend easily are born with the ability and others are not. 
5. Reading comprehension is difficult to train. 
6. Forcing yourself to read and read consistently is all you need to be a good reader. 
7. A lot of people, especially those with LD problems, just cannot and will not be able to express themselves through speaking or writing. 
8. For a lot of people, especially girls, math is hard and will always be hard. 
9. Intelligence cannot be trained.
10. The most pervasive assumption: Once learning disabled, always learning disabled, which suggests that there is little or no hope for remediation and that compensatory strategies and special accommodations are the only affective assists. 

FINDING ANSWERS 

Before we opened the Kurtz Center, we had heard of only one program that had any evidence of its working. The general information contained in the book, Making the Words Stand Still, seemed to make sense, and the teachers, parents, and children who had experienced the program were enthusiastic. This was the first program to be offered at the Kurtz Center. In the four years we used it, we had many successes. We found, however, that it had shortcomings, which included a lack of individualization that essentially made it a shot gun approach (a lot of everything for everybody whether they needed it or not). 

We found that the best we could do, even with above average or gifted learners, with this one program, was to get them to grade level. This was better than anything else we knew of, but it was just not good enough. We discovered that phonetic word attack problems were rampant, but that the method we were using mostly circumvented phonics training with an in-depth "sight" memory approach. Its phonics component was largely unsuccessful. We also learned that the author's reference to "making the words stand still" could partly be explained by a new discovery called "Scotopic Sensitivity Irlen Syndrome", which can be alleviated by colored filters, and by another recent finding called "Disorientation". 

By keeping an open mind and through serendipity, we found the programs of the Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes® Center, of which we are in no way affiliated*, and of those accumulated and developed by Joan Smith, Ed.D. at the Melvin-Smith Learning Center (author of You Don't Have to be Dyslexic). Pat and Charles Lindamood discovered the major factor in reading difficulties/disabilities (phonemic or phonological awareness) and found a way to remedy the problem to a person's ability level. Nanci Bell® discovered why people have challenges in vocabulary development, reading and listening comprehension, and oral and written expression, and designed programs to remedy them. 

Phyllis Lindamood developed a program to enhance auditory and visual to motor development and handwriting difficulties. Kimberly Tuley, in conjunction with Lindamood-Bell®, understood what causes math computation and reasoning difficulties (including word problems), and developed a program to remedy them. 

Joan Smith, through years of experience and experimentation developed unique methods and incorporated the work of Lindamood®, Bell®, and others  who had developed ways of training the brain to function in ways that do not come naturally. 

Gail and Denton Kurtz, with some key members of the Kurtz Center staff, have learned from these and other masters and have developed several unique programs as well as enhanced the development of others. The Kurtz Center, which has maintained total independence from other centers or systems, now has a large repertoire of successful multisensory programs from which to choose. A successful Individual Educational Plan can be developed to remediate any form of learning difficulty. 

Our individualized treatment plans hold the keys to academic success, personal fulfillment, and self-esteem for persons with mild to severe learning challenges. We want to share them with people, and we want to train and/or consult with those who wish to succeed at implementing these programs for persons of all ages.
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