Therapeutic Listening

[Julia Rose]

Has anyone here had any experience with Therapeutic Listening? My son's OT suggested it for him, and gave me some scholarly articles on it. It involves two half-hour listening sessions per day on special headphones, and is supposed to help children on the spectrum with self-regulation in various ways.

The article I read mentioned that it involved certain pitches, tones, and frequencies, but did not go into detail. I would like to know what the content of the listening material is -- I have a doctorate in music, and this king of thing really interests me -- but the OT couldn't describe it.

[Julia Rose]

Forgot to sub.

[katsam]

My son did TL, and it really helped him at the time. The music varied from kids songs, to classical, to some jazzy sounding stuff. It all sounded a little "off" in regards to pitches and tones. My ds did not seem to mind though.
Good luck!

[Julia Rose]

Thanks! I'm really interested to see what happens with DS. I'm also wondering if it might help me with hypersensitivity to sound.

[Rose-Roget]

I have been wondering about it for my son too. I'm taking him in for an SPD evaluation next month, and several of the therapists are certified for TL. Let me know if you see results.

[heatherdeg]

We did it for auditory processing and the program we used was entirely classical music. We're going to go back to it because I honestly don't remember how he responded to it. It was 18mo ago and we didn't get to do the second round because it was supposed to be done with an OT and we had problems coordinating the services with an OT trained to supervise the TL portion. I suspect we saw positive results or we wouldn't have been trying to get the second round coordinated.

[Julia Rose]

There's a queue for the headphones at the agency that does DS's OT, but we will probably start in a couple of weeks. I'll report back.

[kme]

My 6 year old son currently does TL. We bought the headphones and CD player on our own and rent the CDs from the OT.

My son is a sensory seeker and very loud, silly, active, unorganized, etc. The TL really calms and organizes him. We are supposed to pair it wil heavy work - I usually have him jump on the trampoline before or after TL.

I think, for my son, it is great for short-term results. I haven't seen any overall, long-term benefit as of yet.

[Rose-Roget]

Can someone who has tried it explain how the therapist explained to you how it works? Is it individualized for each person, or are sensory seekers "prescribed" one set of music, over-responsives another, and under-responsives another? What does the program look like - especially those who follow a home program?

[Julia Rose]

As far as I know, there are different CDs for different dx's. In fact, they are trying to work it out so that I can receive it too, for hypersensitivity to sound (DS is the opposite, sensory seeking). I want to know more about it too before I try it myself, because I'm a classical musician, and, although everyday sounds make me miserable, I don't want to lose any kind of sensitivity that helps me in my profession.