The Listening Program

I have the program. It’s the mildest of the sound therapies on the market. A big advantage is that you can do it at home and repeat it as many times as you want at no additional cost. Also, it is inexpensive compared to other sound therapies (under $500).

Who recommended TLP? Have you gotten an OT eval from someone trained to assess sensory integration? Also, how old is your dd and has she had a CAPD eval?

Other sound therapies you might want to check out incude AIT-Berard, Samonas, and Tomatis.

Are you familiar with FastForWord? TLP is sometimes used to prepare a child for FFW. FFW can be useful for developing receptive (and sometimes expressive) language.

Mary

Hi Mary,

Has you dd used TLP? If so, what benefits did she experience, if any?

As you already know, my dd completed both FFW 1&2, IM, PG at home, PACE & MTC. She made great progress with FFW, did well with PACE’s AP exercises and is now reading at grade level as a result of MTC. However, she still tests LD in expressive language - and now math too! I’ve ordered Singapore 3B & 4A and she will have 2hrs per wk with an SLP. Do you think she might benefit from TLP? If so, how do I go about ordering it?

As always, Mary, thanks so much for your help!

Blessings, momo

Dear Mary:

My dd was assessed by an OT and found to have sensory integration problems. She was in OT for several years to address these and other problems. She has been assessed by a speech pathologist and by a M.Ed. who both cited auditory processing problems.

Mary, also, my dd is 9 years old. We have not chosen to do FFW at the advice of her speech therapist. Also, she seems to be able to hear the sounds of words and her decoding is good. She does have word retrieval problems, but I have noticed since intensive combinations of therapies (e.g., IM, PACE, Speech, Play Attention, MTC) that her language processing/retrieval/expressive language has improved greatly.

It seems to be really good at helping kids with auditory processing problems. It is an OT-based approach to helping with vestibular development, and is the only program I have seen that indicates it can help with certain retrieval problems. Beth, who posts here, has gotten good results with it. Her son has auditory processing problems and sensory integration problems along with speech, language and vision issues.

TLP sounds appropriate for your daughter but, as I mentioned, it is the mildest of all the sound therapies. You might want to investigate Samonas — more expensive and requires a provider, but also may provide more corrective relief for the sound sensitivities. AIT-Berard is, I think, the most aggressive of the various sound approaches — too aggressive for some. Tomatis is extremely expensive and time-consuming, and not widely available in the U.S.

TLP has to be ordered through a certified provider. Basically, this person makes sure that you have the correct, high-quality sound equipment necessary for the program to be effective, and that you understand how to do the program. It’s pretty simple to actually do. The child listens to 3 music sound tracks from the CD-ROM per session. The first sound track prepares the ears, the second delivers highly modulated music (complex sound manipulations are used for this when the CD is created), and the third track re-conditions the ears for normal listening.

Probably the least expensive way to get TLP is to order it over the internet. There are a couple of providers who will sell you the program and do email and telephone consults to make sure you have the right equipment and understand how to do the program. (The instructions that come with the CD’s are very clear.)

Considering all of the other therapies your dd has had, I see no reason not to add TLP to your program. It’s relatively inexpensive, fairly easy to do, and often has a very positive effect on hearing. Some concert musicians in Europe use TLP to improve their age-related hearing losses.

Mary

Mary,
Do you have the web site address for Neuronet? Please post it for me.
Thanx
Barb

I have TLP, but have to admit we never got organized enough to actually use it. It got put on the back burner when I realized my dd does not have auditory problems. Her problems (admittedly pretty mild now, after all of our remediations) are primarily associated with left-handedness, vision, phonological processing, and a “global” learning style that doesn’t fit the norm. I think TLP would help anyone fine-tune hearing, but it hasn’t been a high priority for us.

You might want to drop back to 3A even if it seems too easy for your dd from a conceptual standpoint. The change in computation requirements from MUS is pretty challenging. Also, the rod diagramming concept is introduced in 3A and then elaborated in 3B. Rod diagramming of problems establishes a solid foundation for algebraic equations later. There’s a SingaporeMath email list at http://www.groups.yahoo.com that you might want to join. I remember your daughter’s scores from the last round of testing. My bet is Singapore will eliminate the “LD” classification in math.

How does your dd’s expressive language LD present? Is it both verbal and written expression?

Mary

is the website for NeuroNet.

Mary

Hi Mary,

Well, I’ve been looking at my dd’s language test scores tonight and I’m not sure what to make of them. Perhaps you can help.

Wechsler Individiual Achievement Test:
87%ile Oral Expression
19%ile for in Listening Comprehension.

Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-Revised:
27%ile Receptive Language
12%ile Expressive Language
(In 1996, her CELF Receptive & Expressive Language scores were 63%ile and 7%ile, respectively.)

Expressive Vocabulary Test: 30%ile

Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test 3A: 87%ile

Word Test: 69%ile (subtests ranged from low of 42% to high of 85%)

Does this tell you anything?

From my observations, dd’s verbal expression is far superior to her written expression, despite observed verbal word retrieval problems.

Blessings, momo

Momo,

Is there a typo on these tests? The difference between the CELF receptive score in 1999 of 63 and now it is 27 that is a difference of 36 points in the negative..If this score is accurate then what explains that difference…could she be ADD-Inattentive?? On the WIAT her listening comprehension was much lower than one would expect considering her high receptive scores and that could be from ADD. Her expressive vocabulary is in the low average range while her receptive vocabulary on the Peabody is in the high range.

patti

Hi pattim,

Those scores are not a typo from me and as far as I know, they aren’t on the test either. I hadn’t noticed that before and I was shocked! I too thought her scores were odd and that’s why I posted them for help. I will need to double check with the school to make sure the latest CELF doesn’t contain typos.

Actually, I strongly suspect she is ADD-inattentive with Limbic ADD based on Dr. Amen’s checklist. I have completed ADD forms but have been lax in getting them back to my dd’s counselor. That will now be on my agenda first thing Monday morning.

Aaaaah…..it just dawned on me that the first set of testing administered by the SLP was at the K building. I remember my dd commenting that it was hard to concentrate with noisy kindergarteners constantly streaming past the door. I told the counselor this so the second set of testing by the SLP was administered at the counselor’s building which houses a few adults and no students. So checking her test records, I see where the WIAT, EVT and Peabody were administered in a quiet environment where the CELF-R and Word were administered in a noisy environment.

I’ll need to take another look at these scores with this in mind. Do the test scores make more sense to you now?

Thanks for your help! Blessings, momo

Thanks Mary,
Great help!

Mary:

I have posted an e-mail on the NeuoNet web site requesting information on providers. Do you know how this program is provided? I have read the material on the web site and it does seem that it would be a good program for my daughter.

I think that the first step is getting some auditory testing done to determine if the child is a good candidate for the program. The provider tells you which tests to get (from an audiologist) and then reviews the results with you.

The next step is bringing the child to the provider for additional assessments to determine a sequence of exercises. If you are local, you probably bring the child in once a week for a session, and then do maybe 10 or 20 minutes of exercises per day at home. If you are from out-of-town, you typically bring the child to the provider for a week’s worth of sessions, during which time they videotape exercises so you can take the video home with you and continue the exercises at home. After a month or so you bring the child back for reassessment, new exercises, and a new videotape. (I am hazy on all this, so don’t take it as gospel.)

Mary

I just wanted to mention that if you can’t do NeuroNet, you could at least do Balametrics. Website is http://www.balametrics.com

Mary

I never saw any real ‘noticeable’ changes when either of my kids do TLP. When we do Tomatis, dd just seems more ‘awake’ and ‘expressive’.

However, what I did notice was that when we were doing her ‘cognitive’ therapy, she would immediately advance to the next level after being stuck on one for months.

I think a good part of my dd’s problem is that she is such a right brain person - I think her left brain/language center lagged in development. She is very mixed dominate on both eye and ear.

The way that I look at sound therapy is that it starts creating neuropathways to those portions of your brain which are asleep - it created the highway. Now it is up to you to start sending the cars on it- you have to work it. It’s a path easier traveled if you have the pavement vs. having to drive on the grass. In other words, the other therapies you do become easier/quicker results.

Also, TLP will not switch your dominance - you need something like Tomatis if you decide to go down that route.

My son also did TLP (twice). Again, saw nothing noticeable(he doesn’t have any learning issues) - however, I do believe that school seems to be easier for him. It may be that he just ‘grew’ up??? Don’t know.