PACE + (learning enhancement)

Who should read this:  If your child is struggling  academically in school (grades 2-8), or if you want to give them a “cognitive boost”, you may want to investigate our PACE+ program.  We are not generally able to serve students with serious learning disabilities, but we have found many otherwise average students may need help in a few specific cognitive areas.  We do not accept federal or state funds, so we are not obligated or able to provide support under state programs.

From 2007 through 2009, The Ambrose School began testing an  advanced cognitive development program called PACE.  The rigor of our school’s academic classroom sometimes reveals cognitive function deficiencies in otherwise normal students that are preventing them from reaching their full potential.  While we do not generally provide special education services, we have found this program to be exceptionally effective at improving the speed of math and reading, memory, and multi-tasking skills.  

PACE + Program Information at The Ambrose School

PACE+ is a program for cognitive development offered at The Ambrose School beginning in the fall of 2010, with earlier admission for testing purposes beginning in 2008. We adopted this program when we experienced several struggling students greatly improve academically after completing this program. The program begins with a diagnostic test that we offer to identify cognitive weaknesses. We then create a customized 12 week cognitive development program to help improve a student’s core academic abilities.

PACE is a program that we purchase from a national organization.  More information from their site is located below.

Success at The Ambrose School

Our staff at The Ambrose School is committed to providing an excellent education from a Christian worldview. By excellent, we mean that a student’s education will be comparable to the best schools in the US and abroad, now and historically. We also want this form of education to be available to as many students as possible. Because of the higher academic standards at Ambrose, some students need a bit of extra help. Families provide the backbone of support for students at home. However, for some students, a strong supportive family, a good work ethic, and excellent teaching in the classroom do not add up to success in a rigorous environment. In these cases, we believe PACE+ may help.

We have experienced several success stories at our school with PACE. Many other testimonials are available from the PACE organization. Students in PACE+ have improved their math abilities (particularly on speed drills), reading ability, and testing skill. It has seemed to actually mature the student’s thinking processes.

We hope you send your children to The Ambrose School because you realize how important a good education is in this uncertain world. We hope you agree that students need to be prepared to overcome hardship and let their light shine for Christ. For this reason, we want your student to succeed at The Ambrose School. We brought PACE to the school to help you help your child grow into the person God will use to change our country and our world.

About Cognitive Abilities

Students have different God-given talents and abilities that affect how they perform in school. In some cases, academic success is tied to a student’s natural cognitive ability, though not always. Sometimes, struggling students simply need more structure. Other times, they need more attention from their parents. Sometimes they need a better work ethic. These are all things that parents and teachers can influence.

However, there are cases when core cognitive ability, which underlies academic ability, needs to be improved. Parents and teachers try to teach, and students work hard, but the results are not satisfactory. In these cases, until the underlying cognitive problems are addressed, the difficulties will continue.

Cognitive ability refers to fundamental mental skills. For example, seeing a three-dimensional shape sketched on a board and understanding what it would look like if it were rotated. Another example is hearing a complex series of instructions and being able to process what you hear and respond.

Cognitive Testing

PACE testing is very similar to a number of cognitive tests available at local public schools, psychologists, and doctors. These tests have students perform various tasks under the guidance of a trained tester. They measure a handful of categories which include processing speed, working memory, visual processing, word attack, auditory analysis, logic and reasoning, word identification, comprehension, selective attention, and spelling. Regardless of the source, these tests usually measure the same categories and in our experience, they all generate similar results. On these tests, a “learning disability” is diagnosed when a student scores disproportionately low on a few of the categories while scoring average or high in most other categories. In these situations, one weakness can undermine their entire academic experience. If this can be discovered, there are ways of training the brain to overcome the weakness. Much like physical therapy helps overcome physical disabilities, cognitive therapy helps overcome cognitive disabilities.

Learning Disabilities

The PACE testing will reveal cognitive shortcomings—generally areas in which a student scores significantly below 100 (average for the age) on one, two, or three categories of the test. If these are highly disproportionate with other areas, it is likely that the student’s performance academically could be greatly increased by joining PACE.

For example, imagine Johnny scores 110 on processing speed, 124 on visual processing and 100 on working memory and spelling, but he scores a 65 in comprehension and a 70 in selective attention. In this case, no matter how hard Johnny tries, his comprehension or selective attention score may prevent him from succeeding. Our PACE program is designed to help a student like this.

Two of the most well-known learning diagnoses are ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) and ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder). While PACE claims success with ADD, The Ambrose School does not necessarily refer students into PACE for these reasons. These are controversial learning disorders because they are often treated with medication. As a matter of policy, our school yields to the parent’s discretion on treatment for ADD and ADHD. We do believe that in many, but not all cases, ADHD can be helped by structure and high standards at home and at school. In the case of ADD, PACE has been shown to help restore focus and multi-tasking ability to those who are easily distracted or confused by stimuli.

At present, we have not had clear success with PACE involving ADD students. While the PACE program nationally has, we hesitate to recommend the program for areas that we have not qualified.

PACE is a program of mental exercises, many of which involve multi-tasking or working in sync with a metronome, that helps improve cognitive performance. In fact, PACE is not actually designed for learning disabilities, but rather, it can help anyone develop quicker mental pathways with more speed and focus. For more information, please see the PACE program materials.

You may notice we call our program PACE +. The plus represents some 10 additional mental stimulation programs that we have incorporated to further help students. While PACE is certainly valuable on its own, we have many more tools in our toolbox. These include Brain Gym, Balametrics, and Write Brain.

Finally, our PACE + program also offers Sonomas which comes highly recommended. We have had success with this program, but we have seen fewer students come through this program, so we hesitate to recommend it as highly as PACE. However, we have seen very promising results from early students. This program is sound based and involves listening to CD’s while doing exercises.

What does PACE cost?

We do not discount the tuition of enrolled students at The Ambrose School during their time in PACE. This is not economically viable for our academic operation.

PACE+ 5-day: $4000

PACE+ 2-day (parents do 3 additional days): $2200

Sanomas (strongly recommended): $850 using the Ambrose CD library, $1000 if you wish to own the CD’s at the end.

Can people not enrolled at The Ambrose School use our PACE center?

Not generally, unless they are seeking enrollment. Exceptions can be made for Christian families who homeschool, etc. Our first priority is students who are enrolled at the school.

PACE information from their company’s literature:

• PACE is based on the best scientific research available and is continually modified to incorporate new scientific data.
• PACE targets and trains those skills that are most likely to have a meaningful impact on a person’s learning and work performance. These skills include attention and concentration, memory, processing speed, problem solving, visual processing, phonetic awareness, and comprehension.
• PACE is provided individually to a student (child or adult) to achieve significant results quickly. Each student receives his/her own training kit.
• PACE consists of sequenced procedures to challenge – not bore or frustrate the student.
• PACE is provided on a one-on-one basis to give the student immediate feedback (error correction and positive reinforcement).
• PACE will improve a student’s self-esteem and confidence by allowing him or her to actually see the difference in his or her own performance.
• PACE drives new skills to the subconscious so that they become habitual and automatic.
• PACE procedures appear to be non-academic so that they are different from the schoolwork with which many may have had negative experiences.
• PACE requires parental involvement or a helper. Practicing at home is cost-effective and helps transfer learned skills to your student’s everyday activities.
• PACE develops meaningful skills that are used in your student’s daily activities so that there is a high level of retention.
• PACE produces valuable results that are quickly seen – there is a high return for your student’s time, money, and effort.

Many learning problems affecting a person’s performance in school or work reflect, to some degree, a lack of cognitive skills; those skills needed to process information. Without these skills, learning success is incredibly difficult. What causes this lack of skills is debated, but our results show that by improving these skills, remarkable improvements of performance are possible.