The Listening Programme

[Minx179]

We had a OT appointment yesterday, the OT recomended the Listening Programme, she used it with her child and said she would recommend.

Has anybody used this programme?
Did you see any benefits/what were they? Would you recommend?

Thanks

ds1 is on the waitinglist for it as recommended by the IT

The OT is checking into whether we can get it through NHS, but she doesn't think it is avail. So were looking at private

I looked at the prices earlier [gulp], which is why any feedback would be welcome.

we are getting it for nothing from OT which school referred us to....

You're lucky then; hope you're successful in actually getting it. All we ever got was fobbed off by everybody when child was younger. How long is the waiting list?

DS2 did Therapeutic Listening last year which we got for free via OT. She then left and no-one else in the local service is trained to use it, so it stopped .

He doesn't put his fingers in his ears as much as he did, but this could be as much to do with getting used to the noise of a m/s class as the programme. We didn't really notice any dramatic changes - he did become a little more verbal while he was dong it, but he's had another verbal 'mini-spurt' recently, so it could have been coincidence.

I think that's the difficulty with these type of therapies. They are not straight forward nor do they work in the same way for every participant.

My son did vision therapy with a behavioural optometrist years ago. When he started VT we saw massive leaps in his reading (increased 2 years in 6 months) though comprehension was slower. He lost his dyslexia label. Private EP, who we'd seen before starting VT, then again 2 years into therapy, said he could never have predicted the degree of advancement in reading considering the previous results.

Over the years we did it - stop/start to allow brain to consolidate new learning, development etc -we noticed lots of changes over time. Sometimes they were very small and/or occurred during an off therapy period, leaving us wondering if they were associated to VT or normal development, while at other times the changes were quite noticable but we felt they couldn't be attributed to changes in parenting/environment/school (no help) etc.

we did therapeutic listening through private OT which was very helpful.

also google 'retained reflexes'- if any of those things apply, find a sensory trained OT who can give exercises to help.

I'm currently doing it with ds. On week 6 and nothing dramatic but there are changes that seem to indicate something is happening. the whole course takes around 5 months so early days.

I decided it was more cost effective to train in it myself so he is my first client in effect. I think the science behind it is strong and the effort that has gone into the development largely explains the cost. For the research have a look round advancedbraintechnologies.com . results can't be predicted so it is always going to be a gamble. In my case with nothing else on offer it is worth the time and expense.

Practitioners can offer it at a distance (on the phone) if that's any help and the people at learning-solutions.co.uk are the experts in this country and can answer your queries.

We are about to start-DS also doing retained reflex programme which has helped enormously-we did via INPP practitioner (google) and had to pay but some OTs are trained in reflex inhibition.
Not sure about training costs for the programme but our INPP practitioner has indicated it shd help with attention/concentration/cutting out peripheral stimuli.
Interested in doing VT too but want to wait to see what is working and thats hard if you do too much at once (and prohibitively expensive and funds wont allow) but i would say that having done reflex inhibition in isolation there is little doubt in my mind that the surges forward in language/behaviour can really only be attributed to this as we have been unable to access an OT for 6 months and do any other therapy.

We did the theraputic listening programme with our NHS OT at the end of last year when DD was 7.

For us it was a bit of a miracle. While under the programme DD started to read, her writing improved, her tantrums improved & she got far less anxious. The progress she continues to make with reading has been staggering. She had a phobia about toilets. Didn't like anything about strange ones. Wouldn't shut door, be in cubicle with flush going, hated hand driers. That is all now a distant memory.

Before I come over all Polly Anna though, out of the 5 CDs we had, she really disliked 2 of them & they had less positive effects. One seemed to make her fall over & one made her more panicky on the weeks she was on them. This is why I am grateful we had a fantastic OT who monoitored her closely. It has been such a success that the OT has now discharged her. While this time last year we were certain we would at some stage need a statement for her, we now not sure she needs one. Luckily sometimes she still has a strop to remind us how bad things were

We have been doing the listening programme since August with no improvements. Though in some areas we have seen things get worse.

What happens? Does the child listen to CDs?

DS2's biggest issue is wonky audio processing.

Yes, you listen to CDs. Our course was for 10 weeks & we went back to the OT to swop CDs every 2 weeks. During the change over period, the OT gave us a new CD plus an OT session so she could see if there were going to be any problems. DD listened to them for an hour a day but split into two half hour sessions. You listen to the randomly so you don't get used to what sounds might come up. Some were nursery rhymes, some classical. We got loaned really expensive headphones to listen through & the CDs got returned at the end of every 2 weeks. If you want further information try the Vital Links website that explains about the work of Shelia Frik.

I have been doing Therapeutic Listening with ds2 since Christmas, using headphones we bought ourself and CDs borrowed from private OT (at a cost!) I have to say I feel a little skeptical about it, Sheila Frik's website seems to be saying 'wow, look what difference this makes' without going into it very thoroughly. I understand that we don't really know exactly how it works but I would be happier to see some controls in the research, e.g. discussing how much progress a child might make with OT for a year but no listening programme. I will definitely be looking at ohmeohmy's links above for more research.

Until recently I felt that I couldn't do any harm with it, and it's quite a good way to get ds2 to sit down for half an hour! But I am interested to see that whatreally felt her dd responded negatively to some CDs. I had been thinking that ds2 responded badly to the latest CD - becoming more emotional, aggressive, violent, chewing his clothes more often etc. Luckily the OT gave us two at the same time so I have made the decision to go back to the older one (Mozart for Modulation) and if he manages to have a run of good days I probably won't try the other one again.

If its the same as Auditory Integration Therapy then Research Autism do not recommend it

My ds did this.

I must admit that I wasn't expecting it to do very much tbh but it turned out to be a positive thing for him.

He used to wear his ear-defenders several times a day at school because he found the general classroom noise too much. He doesn't need them at school now.

An unexpected benefit was that ds also became less hyper. He was suddenly able to sit/stand without the need to be constantly doing something. He's still very active but it's much more controlled than it used to be.

I would say though that things definitely got worse before they got better.