Performing below potential?
Despite great effort, many of our child and adult clients are unable to reach their potential because their attention, communication, learning and organisation is undermined by poor sensory processing and integration. These deficits require them to work longer and harder than their peers to complete their allotted tasks at school or work. Their efforts tend to go under-recognized and under-rewarded.

Some may appear lazy, but if you try to walk in their shoes you will understand how chronic anxiety, disappointment and frustration can undermine motivation. There is no correlation between sensory processing performance and intelligence. We see sensory failures across the spectrum of intelligence. Such failures tend to manifest as a learning difficulty in those with average or lower intelligence.

We see many intelligent children who, despite performing at or above the class average, are performing well below their potential. These children are unable to fully access their intelligent and usually lag behind their siblings and parents academically.

Many bright clients can compensate for their sensory deficits with their intelligence and can effectively ‘hide’ their learning difficulty. However, their sensory weaknesses are quickly revealed in a listening assessment. While some clients try their best, others have become discouraged learners and do the minimum, Under-performing children typically have two or three of the weaknesses listed below:

• Weak auditory processing caused by early ear infections or chronic congestion
• Slow processing
• Low attention, easily distracted
• Overloads easily
• Anxious
• Low self-esteem
• Class clown, disruptive
• Looks around the class for cues, looks away when  talked to
• Tired in the afternoons or after school/work

Efficient learning
For efficient and effective learning to occur in children and adults, we believe that you have to satisfy all these three conditions:

• Be exposed to new information
  
• Incorporate an emotional content to facilitate retention in memory (ie humour) which requires pitch discrimination
  
• Ensure that the student is relaxed (with no anxiety)

Performance and ‘intelligence’
Life performance is not only influenced by the ability to access one’s endowment of intelligence but is also influenced by adaptability to change, emotional maturity and social performance.   IQ test are designed to measure cognitive intelligence and for many, they are a good predictor of employment, income and health status. However, our experience suggests that the correlation between IQ and performance can be distorted for those with sensory deficits. Cognitive intelligence is only one aspect of being human.1

Social competency and self-awareness are also important human attributes which emotional intelligence (EQ) attempts to measure. IQ can be a weak predictor of performance for those with sensory processing, attention, emotional or language deficits or for those with disadvantaged or non-English speaking backgrounds, low motivation or anxiety. IQ tests are not designed to measure important performance attributes like adaptability to change, communication, leadership, interpersonal skills, creativity, musical or artistic ability.2

For example, we see some students with high IQs deliver “average” school performance because of their auditory processing deficits. We also see some highly intelligent children who have experienced an emotional trauma (adoption, domestic violence, and abuse) can score a depressed IQ. These children cannot score a realistic IQ until we can resolve some of their sensory processing deficit as well as their anxiety.

How can listening therapy help?
Weak auditory processing can unlock or undermine the capacity to learn and undermine life performance. So if we can improve auditory processing in bright children, we can rebuild the auditory foundations of learning. While listening therapy is one of the most an effective tools for removing the roadblocks to learning in any client with sub-optimal auditory performance, we can deliver the most dramatic gains in bright children with an auditory processing disorder.

We have designed our programs to gently restore a balance of emotional and cognitive intelligence so that our clients can happily reach their potential. Improved auditory processing delivers increased capacity to process multiple streams of sensory information (sight, sound and  touch/movement) and therefore improve the capacity to multi-task.

As our programs improve academic performance, they tend to facilitate a rapid recovery in self-esteem, behaviour and social performance. This is particularly true for those who are bright, and those who are aware of, and dislike failure.

What else may help?

• Identify appropriate dietary supplements
• For maximum performance and quality of life, ensure you eat a balanced, fresh, unprocessed diet.

Anxiety
We see many children and adults who are both anxious and tired. Together, these are usually symptoms of a Listening Anxiety and an auditory processing deficit. We see this in many children who are underperforming or who have a learning difficulty. For instance, those with poor pitch discrimination are often tired by the extra effort needed to identify the key verbal messages they are listening to. Those with poor pitch discriminators can also experience a chronic uncertainty about what is really meant by those speaking to them which is a significant cause of anxiety, stress and poor social skills in the children we see and treat.

We see many children with anxiety that is hidden from even their parents. Bright children can be very good at hiding their anxiety. Many parents who are juggling the work-home tightrope are often under so much pressure themselves that they are unable to perceive the stress and anxiety in their children. One bright boy when asked what it was like to be seven answered: “It’s kida hard”, when I asked why, he expanded: “My dad tells me all that I need to do to for my life.” [His father is successful lawyer from a non-English speaking background].

Listening Anxiety can spill over into a Learning Anxiety which involves a fear of trying something new because it will be too difficult or that we might look stupid in the attempt, or that we might fail. This can undermine our self-esteem.

What is a learning difficulty?
A learning difficulty involves a difficulty understanding or using spoken or written language. It may involve a difficulty with reading, writing or spelling, maths, listening, thinking, communicating or speaking. 10-16 % of students have sufficient learning difficulties to justify special support.1  However, the incidence of children with a learning difficulty appears to be rising in Australia and elsewhere - some 20% of Australian 5-10 year olds have auditory processing difficulties,2 While 66% of Australian employers consider high school leavers are not literate.3

As infants listen to the language(s) they hear in the first year of life, their brain forms connections for the phonemes they hear consistently, particularly those of their mother tongue. When the patterns that make up words are repeatedly heard by infants, their brains represents them as an assembly of brain cells (neurons) that fire together closely in time. You may have heard the phrase: “neurons that fire together wire together”. This means that the more often we experience a pattern, the more likely it is that this pattern will be wired into our brain for rapid recognition and retrieval. Sounds that are not heard are not wired into the brain. This explains why some children have reading difficulties later in life.

Before children can easily learn to read, they must first be able fluently speak the same language they are learning to read. When a child is learning to read, they must become aware of the sounds that we associate with the letters that make up words. This is known as phonemic awareness. Phonemes are the sounds we use to make words. For example, the word cat has three phonemes - ‘c’, ‘a’ and ‘t’. Changing one of the phonemes from ‘a’ to ‘u’ changes the meaning of the word and produces cut. Processing speed has a significant impact on learning because you need to process faster than 40 milliseconds to accurately discriminate even simple words like cat from cut. We see many children who process slower than 400 milliseconds4.

Early middle ear issues
The most common causes of the auditory processing deficits we see in our clients are:

• A difficult birth
  
• Early ear infections
  
• A food intolerance
  
• Head trauma

Children with poor hearing, a history of early middle ear issues or an auditory processing difficulty, struggle to represent phonemes correctly because their brain does not recognise the word sounds accurately. These errors usually result from an inability to process or discriminate sounds quickly enough. Such children are at risk of spoken and written language delay and experiencing a learning difficulty.  If one does not hear clearly, one cannot expect to process auditory information correctly. Most children with a learning difficulty are not hearing adequately.  Their hearing may be distorted or scrambled or they may be hearing too acutely or too little at particular frequencies.

Children's hearing is normally tested with the standard Audiogram at only four points on the hearing scale and said to be suitable for language if these tones are heard at 20 - 40 decibels. This was based on the range needed for an adult to hear a telephone conversation. It has little to do with hearing needed if a child to collect and discriminate sounds in those early years of life when language is being laid down in the brain. Far more sensitivity is needed for this difficult task. Our listening assessment tests a full range of both frequency and loudness.  We find that most children with learning difficulties:

• Process sound with inappropriate sensitivity.
• Process too slowly.
• Can only manage to understand short blocks of words,
• Quickly overload and lose attention and can be labelled attention deficit.
• Have weak short-term memory
• Having late/poor language skills, in receptive and expressive areas. 
• Have weak phonics, decoding new words, reading, spelling and comprehension. 
• Are emotionally behind their peers.

Diet can play a very major role in both the development of learning difficulties and in their management. The brain is metabolically active and subtle changes in metabolism, caused by an inappropriate diet can significantly undermine cognitive function. A number of studies suggest that learning, attention and hyperactivity can be significantly helped with improved nutrition. [Link to HarryArmytage.com – nutrition page]

How can listening therapy help?
Auditory processing can unlock or undermine the capacity to learn. We can improve auditory processing in childrenwith learning difficulties by improving their ability to discriminate the different sounds. This improves phonemicawareness, written language, attention and communication.

After completing a program of Listening therapy, we have found that auditory processing speed in children typically doubles. The improvement in speech and the ability to decode, as seen in spelling results are wonderful to observe. Auditory programs for struggling students also efficiently build the basic skills (memory, attention, processing and sequencing) that form the foundation upon which efficient learning depends, specifically learning language and reading.

What else may help?

• Comprehensive assessment to identify markers for all the causes of the Learning difficulty
  
• Investigate hearing and address any conductive hearing loss (OAE, typanogram)
  
• If there is  chronic congestion, identify case and rectify
  
• Implement a balanced, fresh, unprocessed diet

What is Dyslexia?
Dyslexia is a reading and spelling disorder which ranges from mild to severe. It is caused by an auditory and/or a visual deficit. This common learning disability affects 5-10% of children and can persist throughout adult life. Children with dyslexia struggle to read and spell with mainstream teaching.

Dyslexics typically have at least average intelligence and normal (or corrected) hearing and vision. Many individuals with dyslexia may also experience difficulty with attention and comprehension, maths, and written expression. While some people with dyslexia mix up their letters, this is only one of many symptoms. So many people who find learning difficult also have dyslexia. Dyslexics can find numbers challenging because they struggle to understand the question outlining maths problem and they tend to have weak sequencing.

The International Dyslexia Association taskforce defines dyslexia as "a specific learning disability … characterised by difficulties with accurate and/or fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and decoding abilities. These difficulties typically result from a deficit in the phonological component of language ... Secondary consequences may include problems in reading comprehension and reduced reading experience that can impede growth of vocabulary and background knowledge."

Auditory processing, distractibility and an inability to filter out irrelevant information could be one of the main causes of dyslexia. This suggests that children who cannot properly distinguish background noise from information could have problems identifying letters and word sounds.

The dyslexic brain struggles to read because even small distractions can throw it off, according to a new model of dyslexia emerging from a group of recent studies. The studies contradict an influential, 30-year-old theory that blamed dyslexia on a neural deficit in processing the fast sounds of language. Instead, the studies suggest that children with dyslexia have bad filters for irrelevant data. As a result, they struggle to form solid mental categories for identifying letters and word sounds.

Dyslexic individuals cannot read fluently or spell well. "Reading fluency is the ability to read text quickly, accurately, and with good understanding" . A successful reader must be able to rapidly decode the individual sounds or phonemes in a word and recognize whole words. Spelling is the ability to translate sounds into letters or recall the sequence of letters in sight words.

Language system deficits, particularly phonological awareness, are thought to be the primary reason that dyslexic children and adults have difficulty acquiring fluent reading and spelling skills. Effective reading instruction is essential to develop these skills. Without appropriate intervention, dyslexia can weaken comprehension and vocabulary which can undermine academic and professional achievement.

Because our ears are attuned to selected languages, it is possible to have dyslexia in one language but not another. The son of a diplomat came for treatment when he started struggling at an Australian school on his return from Switzerland, where he had excelled in a French-speaking curriculum. Unfortunately, this young Aussie had a “French” ear.

How can listening therapy help?
Because auditory processing is closely associated with the capacity to read, if we can improve auditory processing, this allows us to address many of the auditory causes of dyslexia. Listening therapy is an effective tool for rebuilding the auditory foundations of reading and learning. It can substantially improve auditory processing speed, auditory discrimination, pitch discrimination and spatial awareness.

By improving the ability to discriminate the different sounds we can improve awareness of syllables and vowels and associate these sounds accurately with the symbols we use for language in our alphabet.

What else may help?
Investigate and rectify visual deficits at these clinics

• Behavioural optometrist
  
• Alison Lawson program (Sydney, Canberra) and
  
• Irlen Dyslexia Centre

Communicate
Auditory processing governs your capacity not only to listen (receptive language) but also to communicate (expressive language) and sing. Communication and listening and are intimately connected because the voice can only reproduce what the ear hears or as Tomatis put it: “one sings or speaks with one’s ears” (this is known as the Tomatis Effect).

Those with significant auditory processing deficits usually have normal hearing but show the following weaknesses:

• Difficulty with verbal tasks;
• Delayed language development (may also reflect hearing loss)
• Poor articulation (may also reflect motor/structural issue)
• Weak social (communication) skills
• Verbal IQ lower than other aspects of cognitive performance

Can you express yourself?
Some of our clients are unable to express their thought or feelings, while many find it challenging to express themselves. For some, the quality of their voice is poor or they are terrified to public speak. Others are unable to sing or find it very difficult to master a foreign language. All of these patterns suggest a difficulty with auditory processing which can be assisted with Listening therapy.

Do you like the sound of your voice?
As most of my client’s are children, I usually record their mother as she reads a story.The purpose is to use these recordings of the Mother’s Voice as an important part of a child’s Listening therapy. After completing the recordings, as a courtesy, I usually ask if the mother would like to hear a sample. I almost always get the reply “No thanks, I hate the sound of my own voice” or “No thank you, my voice sounds awful.” I am used to it now, but this really shocked me at first – remember, this is the very same voice that (almost) every child loves.

My intuition tells me that this dislike has something to do with female self-esteem. My experience with those adult females who have completed a program is that theystart to accept their voice, while some grow to love their voice, as their children do. This reflects a number of changes including changes to their voice and their self-esteem.

Would you like to sing?
A female client wanted to stay in a choir that was to sing the magnificent choral piece in Beethoven 9th Symphony.  At 74 years old, she was losing her hearing and her ability to sustain the notes required for this piece. While I could not offer any promise that I could help, she decided to try a Home program. After six months, R***e found that she could sustain her notes and she completed the concerts with much joy and a great sense of achievement.

How does listening therapy help?
The microphone completes the auditory-vocal circle by incorporating both hearing and listening. The Expressivephase of a program is a key part of the longer clinic programs, as well as some home programs. In this phase, clients speak into a microphone while hearing their own voice through headphones. Their voice is modified using the psychoacoustic techniques of the program. This helps to awaken the client’s ear and voice to the inflections, intonations, tempo, rhythm and melody of language. Because this is powerful entrainment, the process facilitates an integration of the ear and the voice. It also delivers improved communication and voice quality and facilitates lasting change.

Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD)

What is Sensory Processing Disorder?
Sensory processing is a concept used to describe the way in which our central nervous system (brain and brain stem) receives sensory input from the environment and the body, organizes it, assigns meaning to it, and initiates a response to it. For the majority of people this is an automatic, subconscious process that we are not aware of performing. How we process sensory information determines how we experience and interpret the world around us.

 “Sensory Processing Disorder” (SPD) refers to the set of symptoms and behaviours that result from inefficient or poorly processed sensory signals. SPD is a complex disorder of the brain that affects both children and adults. Dr. A. Jean Ayres, an Occupational Therapist, is credited with developing the theory of SPD, which she originally called “Sensory Integrative Dysfunction.” New terminology has been recently recommended, identifying six subtypes of this dysfunction and using the umbrella term Sensory Processing Disorder to encompass all of them. Many people have a combination of more than subtype.

People with SPD misinterpret everyday sensory information, such as touch, sound, and movement. Some feel bombarded by sensation, while others may be unaware of sensations and may seek out intense sensory experiences. Those with SPD may also show sensory-motor deficits or delays such as weak muscles or a “floppy” body, clumsiness and awkwardness, or delayed motor skill development.

SPD Subtypes

Treatment of Sensory Discrimination Disorder
Traditionally, SPD has been treated by Occupational Therapists who are specifically trained in this sub-specialty area. Occupational Therapy is always concerned with how people function in their daily life tasks and roles. Since one of a child’s most important roles is play, sensory integration therapy takes place in a setting that invites play. During therapy sessions, controlled sensory experiences and stimulation are used to help children learn to manage these experiences and gradually tolerate more difficult challenges.

During each session, the child is guided through activities that challenge his or her ability to respond successfully to the environment. These activities are generally chosen by the child, with the therapist’s guidance, to provide the right mix of tactile, proprioceptive and vestibular sensory input to meet the child’s specific developmental needs. The activities are carefully structured by the therapist, with the difficulty gradually increasing such that the challenge is always at the best level to promote growth and mature responses.

The child's active participation, motivation, and exploration are important aspects of therapy. By allowing them to be actively involved, and explore activities that provide sensory experiences most beneficial to them, children become more mature and efficient at organizing sensory information. This improves functional responses to the daily challenges of life. In addition to clinic treatment, OTs will often suggest home activities, sometimes referred to as a "sensory diet," to reinforce and enhance the effects of treatment.

Checklist
This list assists with identification of potential auditory and sensory processing problems.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Attention deficit and hyeractivity learning disorders
A reduced ability to listen significantly contributes to poor attention and concentration. "Listening" is the active, conscious ability to receive and process relevant information while simultaneously filtering out irrelevant stimuli. The inability to filter distractions and discriminate meaningful information significantly limits our ability to pay attention, concentrate and learn.

People with learning difficulties have slower processing skills. They can only manage to comprehend a few words at a time, sometimes half of a sentence. They quickly become overloaded and stop paying attention. Their memory and output is often mixed-up, resulting in a delay in speech and language.

Primary difficulties usually include phonics, decoding new words, reading, spelling and comprehension. Attention deficit is a frequent diagnosis given to children with these issues, though auditory processing problems are seen in approximately 70% of children with learning difficulty and 50% of children labelled ADD/ ADHD.

Integrative Listening therapy uses auditory stimulation with filtered music to re-educate the inner ear, enabling it to discriminate different frequencies and more effectively process a complete range of sound.  Stimulation to the cortex/ Reticular Activating System via filtered frequencies has a calming and inhibiting effect on an overly stimulated system.  This effect is very important for those with sensory processing disorders, ADD, and ADHD.  The Reticular Activating System controls our ability to maintain states of alertness, consciousness (sleep/ wake cycles), attention and focus.

Reading difficulties can be addressed with listening therapy.  It is not commonly understood that we actually read with our ears!  Reading involves the coordination of visual input with simultaneous analysis of letter sounds, performed by the ear.  The brain interprets these sounds by analysing pitch, loudness and duration. Therefore, the process of decoding letters into sound is improved significantly when auditory processing skills are more accurate and efficient.

Many children with learning difficulties are prescribed drugs and referred to speech or other therapies. 

How can listening therapy help?
Our experience suggests that improving the core function of the auditory processing system enhances the ability to learn and prepares the child's system for successful therapeutic intervention (speech and/or occupational therapy), often without the need for drugs.

What else may help?

• Introduce a balanced, fresh and varied diet
  
• Identify appropriate dietary supplements
  
• Investigate digestion
  
• Intermittent Hypoxic therapy [Add link to Hillside]

Autism Spectrum Disorders
Children on the Autistic Spectrum have difficulty processing and interpreting sensory stimuli in a balanced manner. They live in a world where there sounds have little meaning. Those deep in the spectrum are unable to integrate language because while they can hear, they are unable to listen. This significantly undermines their ability to communicate. Many children with Autism also have auditory hypersensitivity and are sensory defensive because of the difference in the way they perceive sound. They listen through skin and bone conduction rather their ears (air conduction).  These sounds, felt primarily through body and bone, feel like continuous assaults to their systems.  Feeling sound before hearing causes anxiety, frustration, and the tendency to shut down. 

Autistic children have only a limited ability to filter out background noise and "tune in" to what they want to hear.  They may explode into tantrums in an attempt to mask the painful sounds, or repeat words and movements for self-soothing.  The ability to filter needs to be restored before a hypersensitive person can attempt to listen, since listening feels painful and irritating.  The reduction of hypersensitivity to sound vibrations felt in the body can enable children to desire to listen and connect with the outside world.

How can Listening therapy help?
Listening therapy with iLs help to normalise the response of the body (perceived via bone conduction) and enhances the ears' ability to become the main entrance to sound (air conduction).  This enables the ears to effectively filter irrelevant information and protect the system from excessive sound by adjusting the tension of the eardrum when necessary. 

This is achieved through a vibrating bone conductor built into specialised headphones, while the muscles of the middle ear are simultaneously being retrained to process sound more efficiently. This gently re-educates the nervous system to allow it to impart meaning to the sounds that the child hears.

Listening therapy can help to normalise blood flow to the brain in autistic children. This delivers a major benefit because autistic children have limited blood flow responsiveness to auditory stimulation.1

Listening therapy is not a cure, however it is effective in helping children on the Autistic spectrum feel more comfortable in their bodies and in turn, motivates them to engage more fully with people and their environment.  Listening therapy can also improve some of the sensory and behavioural issues experienced by some children with Autism.

What else may help?

• Introduce a balanced, fresh and varied diet
  
• Identify appropriate dietary supplements
  
• Investigate digestion

Adopted
The experience of being disconnected from one’s natural mother canhave a profound impact on sensory processing, emotional maturity and the capacity to reach one’s potential. Many adopted children have separation anxiety and many are unable to express their feelings. Auditory processing disorders can be precipitated by such a significant dislocation early in life. High levels of anxiety in an adopted child can significantly undermine their capacity to listen, communicate and to interact.

In the case of adopted overseas orphans, the impact of the early childhood experience can have an even more significant impact on their auditory processing and their life performance. Children from non-English backgrounds may not have all of the English phonemes coded in their brain because they were not exposed to English early enough. To read English proficiently you must also understand the grammatical rules of spoken English. This can also be challenging for children from non-English backgrounds. However, not all overseas adopted children have auditory processing or language processing deficits.

We see many adopted children with poor auditory processing who are unable to reach their potential. Many are also extremely anxious, emotionally immature and this further undermines their performance.  Some adopted children exhibit school-age learning difficulties while others who are highly intelligent manage above-average, but disappointing academic performance.

Adopted children often look around the class for cues and clues as to what they are supposed to be doing. Poor auditory processing and anxiety can significantly depress auditory attention and comprehension. These deficits can cause the classroom experience to engulf the student with more information than they can process. Auditory deficits can depress a child’s ability to communicate with their peers and to freely express themselves.

How can listening therapy help?
Our experience is that gentle integrated sensory programs can have a significant potential to help normalise the academic and life performance for adopted children who are under-performing at school. It  has the most significant potential to deliver life changing improvements for overseas adopted children.

What else may help?

• Introduce a balanced, fresh and varied diet
  
• Identify appropriate dietary supplements
  
• Investigate digestion

Adults
Some 10-15% of our listening therapy clients are adults. Most seek treatment after seeing the changes we havedelivered to their children.

Adults can suffer from the same learning and attention difficulties found in their children. For many adults, a diagnosis and treatment for their learning difficulties was not available at school - they passed through the system undetected. You have to cope with adult responsibilities with the same processing problems that limited you in school. ADHD was considered a childhood disease until the late 1980s. However, some 70% of kids with ADHD retain symptoms as adults. Some grow up and lose the H in ADHD and become adults with ADD. Such adults have difficulty focusing on a task or controlling their thoughts or behaviour. This can lead to addictions, relationship and career failures.1 

Those with learning problems may have suspected that something was wrong at school. They had to work harder than others to get the same information and took longer to finish assignments. Many found learning so frustrating that they left school early, even though others felt they were intelligent enough to succeed.2 Learning difficulties do not disappear when one leaves school and that they can persist across a lifetime. Learning disabilities may affect adults in their education, vocation, self-esteem, social interactions, organisation skills, punctuality and even the ability to live independently.3 Obesity can also undermine learning and life performance. Diet and sedentary behaviour (TV, video games) do not appear to be the only causes. The critical factor may be a lack of sleep.4

At work, adults with ADHD tend to be either “frustrated and struggling,” or “successful and struggling.” Adults with ADHD tend to be good entrepreneurs and poor employees, because they find it difficult to take orders. Despite having “normal” hearing, some adults also have an auditory processing disorder, which causes you to hear only part of what is said.

This makes it difficult to work effectively - you have to work much harder and longer to keep up with your peers. Sometimes when a child is diagnosed with the ADHD or a learning difficulty, a parent will recognize that they share many of the same symptoms. Then begins a journey to recognise the distractibility, impulsivity, restlessness that have given trouble for years. Others discover that the root causes of their depression or anxiety are a learning difficulty.

Many confuse learning and attention difficulties with low intelligence or laziness. However, such difficulties can affect those who are intelligent, capable or hardworking. Adults with learning issues face daily challenges because they never mastered reading, writing or maths.

While the causes of learning and attention deficits are complex, about 70% diagnosed with a learning difficulty and 50% labelled ADD have an auditory processing problem. Other causes include a difficult birth; early ear infections or a physical or emotional shock. Those with a learning difficulty are usually unable to listen effectively and their difficulties often undermine self-esteem and emotional maturity.
The most common reasons that adults seek listening programs with us are:

• A learning difficulty;
• Creative block;
• Low energy;
• Lack of motivation;
• Seeking to recover ‘lost’ performance after a mild traumatic brain injury caused by a head injury (car accident is most common cause);
• Singing;
• Speech issues including accent and, voice, public speaking,

While we usually start treating the children, it is quite common for tone of the parents to follow when they realise that they have the same learning issues as their children. We also see adults seeking to improve life performance

Elderly
Recent research suggests that the capacity for the two hemispheres of the brain to work co-operatively can decrease significantly as we age. This can undermine not only our ability to hear but more importantly the capacity to understand sounds when both ears (and both sides of the brain) are required to work together.5

Music therapy is used hospitals and nursing homes because it can help to maintain or restore physical, mental and social competence. In many care situations, the elderly can become deprived of meaningful sensory stimulation.

So the sensory and intellectual stimulation of music can help to maintain an elderly person’s quality of life. It can be used to lift mood, reduce depression and pain as well as promoting physical rehabilitation. It can promote a feeling of calm and the restoration of adequate sleep. It can be used lo lessen fear, as well as the muscle tension that often accompanies anxiety.6

How can Listening therapy help?
As in clients of any age, Listening therapy can help to improve auditory processing and life performance.  As compared to programs for children, while adult programs tend to work slower because of diminished adult plasticity (adaptability), this is offset by the higher motivation of adults to complete their assigned programs.

P***y, a 64 year old sought help because she was losing her ability to vocalise characters in the stories she reads to children. Since story-telling is her profession, she was losing her ability to entertain her clientele and earn an income. After completing fifteen sessions of clinic therapy (DLS), she recovered her vocal range with the bonus that her energy levels were also restored.

Another female client contacted me for help because she wanted to stay in a choir that was to sing the magnificent choral piece in Beethoven 9th Symphony. At 74 years old, she was losing her hearing and her ability to sustain the notes required for this piece. While I could not offer any promise that I could help, she decided to try a Home program. After six months, R***e found that she could sustain her notes and she completed the concerts with much joy and a great sense of achievement.

Some 10-15% of our clients are adults. They are drawn from all walks of life and all social strata as illustrated from this sample of clients who have completed programs

• Car accident victim (30) with dyslexia started confronting the fears that were constraining his life.
• Hairdresser (35) overcame her difficulty and fear of reading and learning;
• Interior designer (40) regained her energy and creativity;
• Engineer (43) stuck in a rut with an extended mid-life crisis, regained his impetus to live, work and socialise;
• Tai Chi instructor (46) improved her English communication and her attention;
• Businessman (49) raised his capacity to work harder and longer;
• Brain Gym instructor (52) and war-child improved her mental acuity and ability to manage her business and cope with everyday life;
• Teacher’s aide (55) recovered her ability to speak and socialise after a mild traumatic brain injury;
• Special Needs teacher (62) improved her ability to cope.
• Amateur singer (74) who recovered her “lost” notes.

Mild Traumatic Brain Injury

A blow to the head or anything which forces the head to move rapidly forward or backward can cause a head trauma or a Mild Traumatic Brain Injury (MTBI). Common causes are motor vehicle accidents, falls, assaults and sporting accidents. These head injuries are often accompanied by some loss of consciousness. Since we use our brain for almost everything – any damage to the brain can undermine physical, mental, cognitive abilities and life performance.   Over 2% of Australians 1 live with an acquired brain injury, which constrains their ability to lead a normal life.

A client with a Mild Traumatic Brain Injury may seem fine on the surface, but may privately continue to endure chronic functional problems and fatigue. Mild Traumatic Brain Injuries can involve widespread damage to the brain because the brain ricochets inside the skull during the impact of an accident. Axonal injury occurs when the nerve cells are torn from one another. Localised damage can also occur as the brain bounces against the skull and connections are torn across the peripheral surfaces.

While most clients will fully recover their capabilities, a mild traumatic brain injury can undermine the following cognitive and motor functions 2:

• Sensory-motor - balance and coordination, fine motor, walking, orientation;
• Sensory - vision and hearing;
• Attention deficit;
• Communication - speech impairment, language, ability to express feelings/thoughts and excessive talking;
• Learning - memory, attention, processing speed, concentration and planning;
• Thinking - mental acuity, mental fatigue and problem solving.

Behaviour - depression, anxiety, impulsivity, irritability, mood changes and loss of emotional control.

Each one of these factors can be debilitating. For instance, those with a Mild Traumatic Brain Injury often acquire an attention deficit. This can impair the ability to sustain attention or to shift one’s focus between activities. This and the increase in distractibility undermine the capacity to manage simple tasks like driving, reading or communication with friends.

How can Listening therapy help?
Dynamic Listening and Integrated Listening therapy can be an extremely useful tools to assist the recovery from a Mild Traumatic Brain Injury because they stimulates the brain to re-grow those intra-neural connections which were damaged by an accident. Even with this stimulation, these neural connections can take up to nine months to re-grow and they need to be re-established before you can competently resume your daily life. Clients are most likely to experience improvements in one or more of the following areas: mood, energy level, balance, depth perception, attention, memory or organisation.

Many clients resent the disruption that a head trauma imposes on their lives. Others go through a period of denial and then mourning for their ‘lost’ capabilities. Many are hoping to recover their ‘lost’ intelligence. You can enhance your opportunity to achieve a full recovery if you allow your nervous system sufficient time to repair. It can be counterproductive if you try to rush back to work in an effort to resume a ‘normal’ life before you are ready. Dynamic Listening therapy can help to ground you emotionally so that you are better able to accept this gradual process of neural repair. For some, a mild traumatic brain injury can involve a significant period of rehabilitation. This ‘pause’ can also provide you a valuable opportunity to re-evaluate your life, your priorities and implement positive changes.

An educator experienced a shattering disruption to her life after a child dropped a school bag onto her head from a floor above. This woman lost much of her gifted intelligence and lost her ability to communicate or to socialise normally. Her speech had become agonisingly laboured.  and staccato. She also lost her job and her marriage. In conjunction with osteopathic treatment, listening therapy helped her to regain some of her ‘lost’ intelligence, her speech became clear and she re-married.