The Listening Program

I just purchased The Listening Program at much lease than you quoted. The person I contacted is an OT that also uses interactive metronome (for which I contacted him). My child needs to do TLP before IM so that we can possibly avoid extra sessions. Child has auditory processing difficulty. I bought it outright so that it is mine to use with this child as well as my other child which I think may benefit from it. This is a home therapy with the OT checking in with us. The child listens for 15 min. in the morning and also 15 min. in the afternoon. He/she shouldn’t do homework while listening, but can listen while eating breakfast or in our case before jumping out of bed in the morning. He also advised not riding in the car while listening at least for my child because of sensory integration issues. I have heard that some kids can become agitated after several sessions. The provider said that happens and you back up to the previous disc and move on when child is ready to move to the next disc without agitation. We just received it so I can’t tell you about any improvements or negative results yet..
Good Luck!

I am also in the process of buying TLP. I spoke with my SLP last night and I will be required to keep a journal of behavior changes (both good and bad) but there is no additional charge for the monitoring.

You will need to be sure you have a good portable CD player with headphones that are guaranteed up to 20,000 hertz. The portable CD player is so the child can be more mobile. I was told we could use it in the car (we’re going on vacation during part of the time I will be doing the program) but my daughter might be too distracted to benefit from it much this way. That is something we’ll just have to wait and see about.

Once you own the program, you can use it repeatedly if you want to and don’t have to pay any additional. I think the initial monitoring by the SLP (or person who sold it to you) is to monitor progress. Then if you have any concerns or questions, you can get them answered. There is no initial testing or re-testing after the program is completed.

I think TLP is more powerful than the parent version of Somonas. We used TLP through our audiologist but basically she just gave me the discs and we did it at home. You need high quality equipment. I bought a Sony CD player so we could easily do it in his room. I had earphones from doing Fast Forward.

Beth

I hope no one else writes a check to a provider before they read this, but you can order TLP yourself and do it at home exactly the same as if you pay someone to order it for you!!! It is $375. Keep in mind there is no real independent research to prove that it or any other listening therapy works. Here is the link:

http://rmlearning.com/auditoryprocessing.htm

Janis

Absolutely no need to spend $1800 on this program. We purchased it through an OT for $450. If I would have known about the site, I could have saved more….

We are currently near the end of TLP and honestly, I haven’t seen any changes in our 11 year old LD son. But, we did do Samonas 1 1/2-2 years ago which gave very good results—particularly in mood—seemed to coinicide with fewer meltdowns, to the point where we stopped having them altogether. At the same time there was skill improvement and a very good academic placing, so frustration was less of an issue. Now, none of these Listening therapies are magic bullets and it may be that we are not really seeing any results w/TLP because we have already gotten from Samonas what we could get out of a listening program.

Our OT had said that the basic level CDs are just not as powerful as the higher level and didn’t recommend them. I paid about $100 for each Samonas CD - through an OT- and have a collection of them. After we complete TLP, I will give the kids a few weeks offf and than start up the Samonas again. It is very funny b/c I have both children listening each morning and evening and I have told them they must listen to develop an interest in classical music— a part of their education—and they do not see it as therapy at all. My husband thinks I am a nut case :)

We also used EASE w/our then 5 year old daughter. That was incredible because within weeks she went from being very shy to being quite outgoing. She had her ENT doctor amazed at her ability to get her point across. I suspect there may be some underlying auditory processing things going on with her, but not to the point where she is LD (but who knows- I’ve got my eye on her and many of the things I do w/my son, I do a bit w/her–just in case).

Well, thought I would share our experience and wish you lots of luck.
Ciao for now,
Margo

We also did TLS last year when my daughter was 5. I also got it much cheaper, about $600 with the sony cd walkman, and a really good set of headphones. The biggest change I saw was that she was actually able to sing little songs for the first time in her life. I don’tknow if this is coincidence, but prior I sang her Twinkle Twinkle My Little Star since she was born, and she was never able to recall the words to sing it. She came home from school singing songs for the first time after TLP. Academically, I don’t know. Not so much there after TLP. I hope this helps.
I also had to keep a log of her behavior, to see if she became irritable, upset ect.

Singing is developmentally very important. Interestingly, my son didn’t sing after TLP but did after we did Interactive Metronome.

The hard things about these therapies is that they really seem to affect every child differently.

Beth

We did Tomatis first and like you, we didn’t see any ‘noticeable’ changes when we do TLP. The only thing I noticed was when we were doing Brainbuilder, she would jump to a new level after completing TLP.

TLP is very mild. It would be equivelant to the basic CD’s you mentioned with Samonas. Our Tomatis provider (who was also the co-developer for TLP), uses TLP to potentially replace the 1st couple weeks to 1st month of Tomatis listening, when you sign up for the whole program.

We have also done Tomatis ‘boosters’. This is usually like 3-7 listening sessions(over a 1-2 week period). We do notice some changes when we do the boosters- she seems to be more attentive, talkative, and aware of her surroundings. It’s like it wakes her up.

You guys are great! Thanks for all the feedback, and especially the website….that cost makes it worth a try. As Beth rightly noted, all these programs have such different effects on each child. It makes it all the more difficult to figure out how to best spend the limited $$. I don’t expect a silver bullet, but if it unlocks any mental doors at all, we’ll be a step further along.
Thanks,
dab-nj