Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Therapeutic Listening/ Listening Therapy

Anyone ever have their child do this? I have been hearing about it lately. At first I thought it was just really for autism spectrim disorders and ADHD... but I am hearing/reading now that it can help with motor issues, too - like hypotonia, etc. I am interested in having DS maybe do it through Theraplay, Inc. (where he gets his private OT). It would cost me an up front cost of $250 (that's with insurance covering it) and I think I need to pay for ear phones. So it's not cheap. My son's OT siad she'd chat with more about it on Thursday and whether or not it would be helpful for DS (I approached her about it - she did not try to see me on it or anything). Just wondering if anyone here has tried it and is it worth it?

Our dd did listening therapy when she was 4/5 years old - but it wasn't for hypotonia, it was for sensory processing issues. She was highly distracted by background noise and having difficulty following multi-step directions, as well as never sitting still. It helped her *tremendously* and was covered by our insurance... but fwiw... I am not sure I understand how it would help with hyptonia.

In case you're wondering, this is the same dd who was later diagnosed with a visual processing disorder and who went through VT

I'll be interested to hear what your OT says about it!

polarbear

Nice to know! You're a plethera of knowledge for me, polarbear - seems like all the stuff I am embarking on you have already btdt to some extent!

Anyway, I think it has something to do with just helping neurological issues in general (DS hypotonia is allegedly neuromuscular) so therefore they are finding it helps with a lot of stuff ... I have no idea, really. He really has relatively poor executive functioning and processing speed in my opinion; so even if it didn't really help with hypotonia per se it would be nice to see that other stuff improve, ya know? I have no idea - I am kind of talking out of my butt, LOL. I guess I'll see what the OT says about it. But nice to know your DD did well with it. Nice that your insurance covered it!

We didn't buy the whole package, but the OT used the headphones with the weird music (have you listened to it yet?!) during a lot of her sessions with our son. He was able to pay more attention with the headphones and music on. I think it blocked out the other distracting sounds (flickering lights, air conditioning, kids in other rooms, chairs scraping, etc.) He still has the hypotonia that is often associated with autism (he has autism) so I don't know about therapeutic listening affecting that.

He still likes headphones in general, though. He went through a period where he wore noise-blocking headphones, but now just uses them for listening to regular music or computer games.

Kate

Thanks Kate. No I haven't listened to it yet...

We did not try it because I wasn't convinced that it would do more for my son than his musical theater classes and we couldn't afford both. Musical theater, which included dance and singing along with acting, helped my son develop much better timing, balance, ability to follow multi-step directions, ability to do multiple things at once--like singing and dancing and acting all at the same time, as well as endurance. He learned to push himself physically through pain when he needed to but also to manage the fatigue by sitting out and watching dance practice if he felt he had to in order to get through an entire rehearsal. He had to get used to bright lights and lots of noise while memorizing lines and lyrics and dance steps. He learned to work on a team and to improvise on stage when things didn't go as planned--like music not starting when it was supposed to and sometimes in theater you have to make up lines to cover for other actors when they forget their lines. He was able to do this. He just learned so many good life skills.

Several people did tell us they thought it would be good for his hypotonia and sensory issues (vestibular and proprioceptive) but could not tell us how. I tried to find information on line and I never found anything to convince me that it would be better for my son than musical theater. I don't think we made the wrong choice when we chose musical theater over listening therapy or even OT.

The thing that is different about listening therapy from putting on headphones and listening to regular music is that there are patterns built into the "songs" that train the ears to hear through background noise - there may be other things too, I can't remember them at the moment but it's been several years since my dd was in listening therapy. Her main challenge was sensory-related - she could not tune out background noise. Loud noises bothered her tremendously, when she was in a large room with lots of echo-type noise she was filled with panic, and when she was at school (kindergarten) she could not hear her teacher talk because she couldn't filter out the background noises in the classroom (kids rocking on their chairs or bouncing a pencil around or shuffling papers). Listening therapy made a huge difference for her in her ability to ignore background noise, and her kindergarten teacher was amazed.

So that was our experience, and why we pursued it. As I said before, I don't understand how it would help with hypotonia, but my dd *was* in sensory OT at the same time she did listening therapy and one of the things her therapist worked on was exercises to address weakness in her trunk muscles.

polarbear

Okay, well, I talked to the top OT at DS' therapy place and she is also trained in the Therapeutic Listening and she was honest and said she knows it's touted by some as helping just about everything but that it really wouldn't do anything big for my DS. It really is for children on the spectrum or with true ADHD and also SPD. If I had money (and the time - an hour a day for 12 weeks! Yikes!)to spend, of course all that stuff is 'good' for you and any child, - I'd probably give it a shot... but it's not like you see the big difference like you would with an ASD, ADHD or SPD child. It reminded me of vision therapy - yes vsion therpay is pretty much "good for" anyone, atheletes often get it just looking for that extra edge or whatever but it's really not worth the time and money unless you have a real vision disorder like convergence. And that is where you see drastic miraculous changes - when the person getting it has a true specific type of issue.

So I feel better that I inquired... At least I know. Honestly, if I were wealthy I would do it for DS - take a summer and do it just to give him more... I bet I would see some nice changes. But it's not going to give DS a drastic enough change to warrant the time and money in our current situation.

My DS did therapeutic listening (Vital Sounds) when he was 2-3.5 yrs old and in EI and went to an ot sensory gym. He was born with severe SPD and hypotonia and some other stuff.

Like PolarBear, DS had a terrible time with loud noises (i.e. public toilets and hand dryers) and it was pretty difficult on a daily basis since we were living in NYC! Did the Vital Sounds work? To a degree. Yes, the earphones and CD tapes are not cheap and we paid out of pocket. I still have them somewhere.

When DS first started to use the Vital Sounds CDs, I remember he used to fall asleep within 5 minutes or so. He was around 2 yrs old then. Poor thing could barely stand up with the CD on; that's the vestibular part. It just tired him out between listening and standing upright. Wish it worked this way today!

DS did 2.5 yrs of vt between 4 and 6 yrs old. We had more drastic results with vt than the therapeutic listening. Then again, DS was born with visual deficits (that's under the other stuff category). Yes, it's expensive. We paid out of pocket. However, DS was 4 and barely scribbling and had poor eye-hand coordination. I'd do it again in a heartbeat because we did see some impressive results and there's no way DS would have gained the visual perceptual skills w/o vt. He had already had 4 yrs of pt/ot before he started vt but still barely scribbled and was struggling with body-in-space/vestibular issues.

Lately, DS has been doing neurofeedback. That's also expensive. Then again, you're re-wiring the brain and DS's situation is far from the norm.

Yes the VT really is wonderful. Ds read to me tonight and he's really do so much better. I had gotten scared last week, I think it was, when I feared a regression but he was just tired and his were strained from using the iphone too much. It's funny to me that VT is a bit controversial - I have seen more drastic results form the VT in two months that I have from the OT in two years! Not that I am saying that the OT is worthless, I am not - but VT is really something else - it REALLY seems to actually fix the problem!