therapeutic listening
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therapeutic listening
| Tue, 12-11-2007 - 3:45pm |
A while back I posted about wanting to have Lily assessed for OT outside of school because the school has her listed as "consult only" when it comes to OT. We had her assessed at our local hospital (where my dh works as a respiratory therapist). The pediatric OT said she qualified for two 1 hr sessions per week! And the best part is that it's covered 100% by the hospital insurance! Lily has been going to OT for the last few weeks and initially the OT couldn't get her to focus on any one thing for long enough to feel like she could really help her. Of course, we weren't surprised by that. Lily's attention span is practically non-existent. After a couple of sessions of trying to get her to focus, the OT decided to try therapeutic listening. I had never even heard of it before, but we are seeing some success with it already. Lily is able to participate and focus for her OT session and I'm able to get her to sit at the table and color, do puzzles, count, etc. for about 20 minutes at a time! It's like a miracle to us. So far the school hasn't reported much difference, but I'm hoping that it will help there soon too. Sometimes Lily even asks for her headphones. She seems calmer and more connected emotionally as well. In fact, yesterday I thought I was going to faint when she crawled up into my lap, laid her head on my shoulder and said "I like being home with you. I like you." I wanted to run outside and shout "Hallelujah!", but I was afraid to make too big a deal of it. She is not usually an affectionate child and that was the first time she's ever done something like that. For that brief moment, I felt truly connected to her. I wish we had known about therapeutic listening before now. Has anyone else had any experience with it? So far, I'm very impressed with how well it's working for Lily.

I am glad that the therapeutic listening program is working well for Lily. My DS's OT recommended it too but we had mixed results. The EASE CD #1 made him regress (he started to have more accidents in his pants) so we switched to Vivaldi. I have not seen any changes with that one, but we are still continuing. These CDs are electronically enhanced to have some frequencies that we cannot hear but will work on children's inner ear to give them more vestibular input. Some work on their attention, some work on their regulatory mechanisms, etc. Which CD is Lily listening to?
-- Innie
I am so happy to hear you are having good results.
- Christina mom to-
Chloe (10) Aiden(8)
Lily is listening to EASe # 4 right now. Her OT only had a couple of sets of the cd's and they are all being used right now by various children. She had to convince her boss that they were having a positive effect before he would authorize her ordering more. She told me yesterday that the order has been approved and now she just has to wait to see how long it will take for the ordering dept. to actually put the order through. Gotta love the red tape, huh? As soon as the new cd's come in, she is going to switch Lily to the next one. I am cautiously optimistic that we will continue to see improvements.
Amy