So, as promised I did say I would do a review on the Gemiini program. The program that is marketed as one of the biggest breakthroughs for children with Autsim. The following is solely my opinion and experiences and if you have had a different, better experience do feel free to share it! While I understand and do not dispute that this has worked or seemed to work for many, it was not for me and my son.
Much of it appeared to be based on verbal behavior, and vocal coaching techniques. Which I like! However, it was terribly bland and flat, there was no emotion, no fun and quite honestly, in my experience as a teacher and of working as a therapist with children on the spectrum, making it FUN is one of the huge factors that keep our kids on task.
The videos were difficult to navigate, the whole site was quite
difficult to navigate and while there was support from the facebook
community I still felt very alone. That was not something I was
expecting from a group of special needs parents.After the initial Hi,
welcome, only a handful if that, of the ladies spoke briefly with me and
THANKS ladies that was lovely of you but otherwise the page seemed full
of new people struggling. I may have just hit it on a few quiet days or
after an influx of new people but this was my experience.
My biggest criticism if I may call it that was this. When customer service emailed me to find out why I cancelled or if I had any difficulties etc. I asked them some questions. In fact I will copy my email to them here and also their response...
Hi Natalia,
I cancelled the subscription to the program because I was quite unsure of it's worth for my child, and I did not have the opportunity to really try it. What I did see, was much of what we do at home anyways regarding speech, he does speech therapy and ABA also. It was also not that easy to navigate and we even had issues getting the videos to play sometimes. It wasn't my internet connection as I did check that.
I have a few questions.
Is this program based on research?
If so where can I read this and the results etc?
In what way is it complimentary to ABA and speech therapy?
Sincerely
Lexi
That email was sent to them 10 days ago, bear in mind it took them a matter of hours to contact me when I cancelled... as of this morning... their reply to me.
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Yes, that is correct, no reply. Does this mean that it isn't based on research, does this mean that they don't care about the issues with getting the videos to play? Does this mean that they only care to contact potential customers because they will not get a subscription.
I do not doubt the possibilities of this program for people who may not have the resources to get other kinds of face to face 1 - 1 therapies for their children, but not responding to a client, or potential client, or maybe just not having the answers? Sorry Gemiini you get a 3 out of 10 from me.
My biggest criticism if I may call it that was this. When customer service emailed me to find out why I cancelled or if I had any difficulties etc. I asked them some questions. In fact I will copy my email to them here and also their response...
Hi Natalia,
I cancelled the subscription to the program because I was quite unsure of it's worth for my child, and I did not have the opportunity to really try it. What I did see, was much of what we do at home anyways regarding speech, he does speech therapy and ABA also. It was also not that easy to navigate and we even had issues getting the videos to play sometimes. It wasn't my internet connection as I did check that.
I have a few questions.
Is this program based on research?
If so where can I read this and the results etc?
In what way is it complimentary to ABA and speech therapy?
Sincerely
Lexi
That email was sent to them 10 days ago, bear in mind it took them a matter of hours to contact me when I cancelled... as of this morning... their reply to me.
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Yes, that is correct, no reply. Does this mean that it isn't based on research, does this mean that they don't care about the issues with getting the videos to play? Does this mean that they only care to contact potential customers because they will not get a subscription.
I do not doubt the possibilities of this program for people who may not have the resources to get other kinds of face to face 1 - 1 therapies for their children, but not responding to a client, or potential client, or maybe just not having the answers? Sorry Gemiini you get a 3 out of 10 from me.
Thank you for posting this as an mom to a non verbal asd almost 5 year old, all the reviews I've found seem to be scripted out
ReplyDeleteHi,
ReplyDeleteThis is Laura Kasbar, the founder of Gemiini. Right when you were writing to us, we had an employee who, well, let's just say wasn't doing his job. We found out and had to let him go. Since then our customer service is spot on and we get tremendous reviews all of the time. We also launched with a brand new website and I invite you to try it again, at no charge, for 2 months. There are so many amazing reviews from mommy bloggers all over the Interenet, this is quite honestly, one of the only negative ones I have ever seen. And I think we can do better for you. Here is one fo the High Interest videos that we started to create too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50HulV6o310