WHAT IS THE LISTENING PROGRAM?
The Listening Program is a home based therapy of Music-Based Auditory Stimulation method.
It is a safe, effective, drug-free approach that helps improve the brain function and reduce stress, and trains the brain in auditory skills needed to effectively listen, learn and communicate.
The primary purpose of The Listening Program is to bring the auditory system into balance.
The Listening Program (TLP) is a method that can facilitate profound change for the people it reaches, whether for a beginner or experienced listener-child, adolescent, or adult and for those whose lives are touched by them.
Listening is a process that involves functional, emotional and psychological components. It relates to the function of our neuro and auditory physiology, and the motivation and desire to communicate. Listening is more than the passive act of hearing. It requires the ability to direct the ear and the brain to work in harmony to perceive, discriminate and process particular sounds, along with the desire to communicate.
Auditory System Overview
To help you better understand the Listening Program let’s begin with a brief overview of how the auditory system works.
Sound waves are produced by air pressure oscillations (fluctuations) that carry language, music and the sounds of our environment to our outer ear. Once sound has reached our outer ear, it moves through the auditory canal. Sound then passes through the eardrum, middle ear, and temporal bone to reach the inner ear.
The inner ear converts the mechanical energy of sound waves into electrochemical messages that are carried along the auditory nerve to the brain. The brain then can perceive the messages and compare them to previously stored sounds to interpret the information.
Anywhere along the auditory pathway, distortions can occur in auditory perception. These distortions can adversely impact listening and create auditory processing problems that can lead to a host of social, emotional, and academic challenges. An event as seemingly benign and treatable as a middle ear infection can cause the brain to permanently misinterpret or distort the perception of sound. These perceptual distortions not only manifest as auditory processing problems but also create stress that is revealed in the voice, energy levels, social skills, and self perception.
The main theory behind The Listening Program is a method to train or re-train the ear and brain to process sound without distortion. When sounds are perceived without distortion, the auditory system is in balance, and this gives the listener the opportunity of being able to listen to others as well as to themselves. To listen is to communicate.
TLP History
The Listening Program builds on the clinical research and many of the theories of the French physician Alfred A. Tomatis. Dr. Tomatis was an Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) specialist
(1920-2001) who focused, much of his over 50-year career studying the role of listening in human function and performance. He is credited as the pioneer in the field of auditory stimulation with the discovery of the Tomatis Effect. “The voice can only reproduce what the ear can hear,” TLP was developed by a team of interdisciplinary professionals who work at and with ABT-Advanced Brain Technologies. Team members include physicians, speech therapists, occupational therapists, neurodevelopment specialists, musicians, and audio engineers, among many others. Members of the TLP development team have extensive experience in their respective fields, and they are trained in the various auditory stimulation methods currently available. Thus, The Listening Program and you- or your listener-directly benefit from decades of combined experience in the research and clinical application of these methods.
Bone Conduction
Some children may benefit additionally by integrating Air Conduction with Bone Conduction.
So what is “Bone Conduction?” Simply put, it is a process by which sounds are transmitted into bone which stimulates the cochlear and the vestibular system.
The first known application of bone conduction was by Dr Tomatis the father of auditory stimulation. After much research and investigation into the perceptions of sound and the role of the muscles of the middle ear, Dr. Tomatis believes the vibrations of the eardrum, firmly cradled by the annular ring of the temporal bone, are carried to the cochlea via the bony chamber called the osseous labyrinth. All listening is ultimately, therefore, through bone. Dr. Tomatis thus proclaims that good listening is accomplished with the whole body.
How can it help? The vibrations cause movement to the hair cells of the vestibular system, which in turn causes an electrical discharge to occur that is carried ultimately to the cortex of the brain. Through the rich connections between the ear’s vestibular system, cerebella pathways and the body’s muscles and joints, awareness of our body is therefore enhanced. This infrastructure forms the foundation for higher learning and integration along with improved focus and attention.
In essence, bone conduction through the vestibular system is grounding, and there is an improved ability to execute the motor activities required for success in the world, be it in sports, dance, handwriting or riding a bicycle. Once the conscious attention can be freed up by making the regulation of our body movements automatic, attention can now be directed to taking on the challenges of learning, regulating our emotions, and developing the executive functions of organization, planning and impulse control.
Indications for the use of bone conduction
As we have already experienced most children do very well with standard air conduction using The Listening Program. However, many will gain quicker results with the addition of bone conduction due to its effect on the body.
Bone Conduction is most appropriate for those individuals with Sensory Integration issues. This includes children with a poor sense of balance, those with poor fine and gross motor coordination those who are clumsy, or poor at sports. For those struggling with expressive language issues, bone conduction gives greater awareness of the jaw and lips improving use of and organizations of the muscles of articulation. The listener also develops a deeper sense of listening to him or herself. This improved awareness of self strengthens the ego promoting greater self-confidence and improved social relationships.
To have access to The Listening Program or Bone Conduction we generally require that all users undertake an assessment. In some cases if a formal diagnosis has been made by other professionals, an assessment may not be required. The assessments would usually include;
• Scan C or Scan A:
The tests for Auditory Processing Disorders in Children and Adults. These tests are a screen test used to determine auditory development and to identify efficient and inefficient auditory processing performance in each particular age group.
This assessment is used by Links To Learning to gather baseline data, which will be used to gauge the efficacy of The Listening Program.
• Auditory and Visual Digit Span:
Digit span measurement is a way to check sequential processing abilities. Sequential processing is our ability to receive, hold, process and utilise information in an orderly way. Sequential processing ability is an aspect of short-term memory, which is essential to learning and every mental process, including verbal communication. An individual’s digit span typically increases approximately one digit per chronological year for every year until the age of 7, plus or minus two. After that time digit span will not increase more than one or two digits throughout the rest of a lifetime.
• Threshold of Processing Speed
This is a non-language or reading/ symbols test so there is no learnt element involved hence the individual would not be using areas in which there could potentially be a weakness. It is one indication of how efficiently or how quickly information can be processed in the two main classroom learning senses: vision and hearing.
The optimal speed for listening, language and literacy is between 40 and 60 milliseconds, for a bright individual this may be closer to 30 milliseconds.
Under 100 milliseconds is needed to learn in a classroom environment.
The assessment process is child friendly and not threatening in any way, and enables us to build a clear profile of where your child’s processing is at.
