Using music to train your brain!

Therapeutic Listening coupled with sensory integration tends to speed the emergence of:

Attention
Organized behavior
Self regulation
Postural Control
Bilateral coordination
Praxis (The practical application of learning)
Fine Motor Control
Oral motor/ articulation
Social skills
Communication
Visual motor integration

Listening is a function of the entire brain; when we listen, we listen with the whole body.

We use a large number of specially designed CDs in a lending library. We lend them out two weeks at a time and we can lend out the specialized headphones and CD players as well

What is Listening?
Listening is the process of detecting sounds and organizing and integrating them for use with information from other senses. Listing skills include both conscious and unconscious processes. We constantly monitor the ambient environment around us. When we hear an important sound, we shift our attention to orient, locate and select the sound for further investigation. This constant monitoring occurs in key centers of the brain and is a critical first step to many functions, including attention and integrated sensory processing. It is largely done unconsciously so the brain pathways are free to perform higher level functions. But we can voluntarily attend to sounds, discriminate and interpret them on a more conscious level as well.

What is Therapeutic Listening?
Therapeutic Listening (TL) is an expansion of Sensory Integration. It is an auditory intervention that uses the organized sound patterns inherent in music to impact all levels of the nervous system. Auditory information from Therapeutic Listening CDs provides direct input to both the vestibular (how we sense our body’s position) and the auditory (hearing portion) of the vestibulo-cochlear nerve. The emphasis of TL is on blending sound intervention strategies with vestibule-proprioceptive, core development, and breath activities. This helps to sustain body awareness and centering of the body and mind in space and time. Providing these postural movements and respiratory activities as part of the TL program is critical.

Therapeutic listening utilizes numerous CDs that vary in musical style, types of filtering, and level of complexity. The music on Therapeutic Listening CDs is electronically altered to elicit the orienting response which sets up the body for sustained attention and active listening. Therapeutic Listening can impact sensory modulation, attention, behavior, postural organization, and speech and language difficulties. Trained therapists learn to use modulated CDs to set up programs for clients in homes, schools and clinics.