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

Last edited by polarbear; 10/18/12 01:41 PM.