Benefits of Sound Therapy for: Learning Disabilities, ADHD, Dyslexia, & Auditory Processing*
Dyslexia, & Auditory Processing*
Posted on April 12, 2010 by Sound Therapy
Learning Difficulties
Learning difficulties and auditory processing problems: Learning difficulties are a general term meaning that a child (or adult) has difficulty learning in a typical manner because the brain has trouble processing information. A learning difficulty is not an indication of intelligence; it means the child will learn differently from others and may struggle with certain tasks.
Global learning difficulties: If a child has “global learning problems,” then he will find all aspects of learning and understanding difficult, regardless of what method of teaching is used. These children used to be called “slow learners.” Such a child will typically receive a low score on IQ tests or other learning assessments.
Specific learning difficulties: Others may have “specific learning difficulties,” meaning that only certain aspects of processing are problematic. These pupils are often quite bright but are sometimes misunderstood and mistaken for being lazy or careless, when in fact they are compensating for a sensory processing problem. They may need a different type of instruction that suits their processing style. Specific therapeutic interventions may significantly alleviate these pupils’ difficulties and enable them to excel.
Can it be fixed? While a learning difficulty cannot normally be fixed completely, the right stimulation and inputs to the nervous system can significantly improve a child’s processing ability. This can go a long way towards reducing the effects of the learning difficulty.
Remedial instruction, tutoring, speech therapy, etc. can be very helpful. However, this type of individual remedial help is more likely to work if the processing problem is addressed first. Sound Therapy is an easy, affordable, and effective way to improve sensory processing to address the cause of the problem.
Terminology: Some of the terms for different types of learning difficulties include dyslexia, dyspraxia, apraxia, sensory integration disorder, auditory processing disorder or central auditory processing disorder.
ADD/ADHD
Posted on April 12, 2010 by Sound Therapy
The problem: Attention Deficit Disorder or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is a congenital problem that affects 20% of boys and 8% of girls. It is believed to be caused by a transmission-system deficiency that relays messages between cells across the brain. The majority of children with ADD/ADHD have auditory reception problems. Although they can hear, they have difficulty making sense of it. They cannot tune out unwanted input and focus on selected sounds. It is this indiscriminate reception of auditory input that leads to an inability to concentrate on a selected topic for any length of time. Poor functioning of the frontal lobe means the child cannot think quickly enough to put the brakes on and control the impulse to act. This impulsiveness and hyperactivity also lead to behavioral problems and poor social skills.
How Sound Therapy may help: By stimulating the frontal lobe, Sound Therapy may restore the child’s ability to think quickly and put the brakes on before acting. It may also retrain the listening capacity or the auditory reception process, so that the child can learn to focus on the desired sound and to relay the sound directly to the language centre in the brain. Auditory reception problems are caused, in part, by the ear’s attenuation of certain sound frequencies. The ear muscles become lazy and unresponsive and must be stimulated to regain the ability to tune in to the desired sound. Sound Therapy has been shown to support ear rehabilitation and may help reorganize auditory transmission in the brain. This process helps reduce stress and tension throughout the nervous system, enabling the child to attend to a chosen stimulus rather than being constantly distracted by environmental sounds.
How to use it: Regular use of Sound Therapy is essential for achieving results. The child should listen every day, if possible, for between 30 and 60 minutes. If it is possible to get the child to listen for longer than this each day, that will be even more beneficial. It may be difficult to persuade a child with ADD to sit still and listen – and although there is nothing wrong with listening on a personal cassette player while moving around, a child who is hyperactive may put the machine at risk! Some parents have found greater success in helping children with ADD listen during sleep. If the child is a restless sleeper, the mini phones can be taped into the ear with surgical tape, or you can use headphones that clip around the back of the ear. Be sure to place the headphone marked R in the right ear. For listening while asleep, music tapes are most suitable.
There is nothing wrong with offering incentives to get the child to listen. The promise of a reward once the child has done, say, 100 hours of listening, may prove effective in some cases.
What it achieves: Very dramatic results may be achieved with Sound Therapy for children with ADD. The first change you may observe could be a marked decrease in activity (for overactive children), while underactive children may become more energized. As listening discrimination improves, memory and concentration improve, enabling learning with much less effort. Sleep and appetite problems resolve as the system calms and becomes less erratic. The behavioral difficulties, such as impulsiveness and aggression, are now brought down to a manageable level. The child may now be able to pay attention in class, understand and follow instructions, and be motivated to communicate and learn.
Dyslexia
Posted on April 12, 2010 by Sound Therapy
The problem: Dyslexia, meaning “reading difficulty,” was originally called “word blindness” and thought to be a visual problem. One of the earliest writers on the subject, Dr Hinshelwood, was an eye surgeon, which may account for the initial emphasis on visual difficulties. Many recent studies point to language and auditory problems as the primary causes. Listening is the most basic skill in verbal communication, and a weakness in listening may hinder the development of a strong language base. Consequently, the child encounters problems when it comes time to approach the more complex linguistic tasks of writing and reading. If the sounds of speech have not been accurately heard, they cannot be accurately conveyed by symbols. The left hemisphere of the brain is the main centre for processing language. For speech sounds to reach the brain efficiently, the right ear must take the lead in listening because it communicates most directly with the left hemisphere. Dr. Tomatis contends that children with dyslexia have not achieved right-ear dominance and, therefore, the order in which they hear sounds becomes jumbled. If they sometimes use the left and sometimes the right ear as the directing ear, sounds may reach the brain at different speeds, so letters will be jumbled. This accounts for errors of reversal, such as writing “was” as “saw” or pronouncing “spaghetti” as “pisghetti”.
How Sound Therapy may help: The balance between the two hemispheres of the brain is of fundamental importance in overcoming dyslexia. Both hemispheres contribute to language processing, but their roles differ. The eye must combine with the power and the quality of the ear to make sense of the written sounds. This coordination is easy when the left hemisphere primarily processes audition and the right hemisphere primarily processes vision. In dyslexia, the pathway for phonics analysis has been damaged. Sound Therapy may help restore this route’s function and address the underlying cause of the problem. Tomatis says, “We read with our ears … the ear is the organ of language, the pathway to language assimilation, the key that controls it, the receptor regulating its flow.” Sound Therapy may help stimulate and exercise the ear, encouraging it to receive and interpret sound efficiently. Music is a highly organized series of sounds that the ear has to analyze. Therefore, listening to music is an excellent way for a child to learn to perceive sounds in an organized manner, or, in other words, to listen. The higher volume of sound to the right ear, built into all Sound Therapy recordings, encourages the right ear to become the directing ear. Once this right-ear dominance is established, the problem of reversal will likely disappear.
The added benefits of confidence and self-esteem: Children with dyslexia often have feelings of inferiority after repeated failure. It is unfair that they must try many times harder than anyone else to achieve only mediocre results. Sound Therapy may provide immediate emotional relief because it requires no additional effort from the child. A therapy that does not require the child to struggle with the problem area of language enables him or her to feel relieved of the burden for once and enjoy a treatment that is not a constant reminder of his or her own inadequacies. The basic cause of the language difficulties may be remedied by Sound Therapy. Once the child is able to receive and interpret sound accurately and easily, his or her ability and motivation to communicate is greatly increased. Thus, the problem learner is transformed into a receptive and motivated learner.
How to use it: A child with dyslexia should listen to Sound Therapy every day for 30 to 60 minutes or more if desired. Listening can be done during sleep, play, homework, or travel. If the child wishes to listen at school, parents can request the teacher’s consent. This will likely be approved, as listening in the classroom can help the child concentrate and perform better. The reading-aloud exercise, while holding an imaginary microphone in the right hand, has been particularly helpful for children with dyslexia.
Children who are experiencing difficulty with reading can begin this exercise after the first ten to twenty hours of listening. The child sits upright yet comfortably and reads aloud, holding the right hand near the mouth, as if holding an imaginary microphone. This has the psychological effect of ‘switching on’ the voice. At the same time, it encourages right-ear dominance, which is necessary for the successful conversion of visual symbols into sound. This exercise should be completed for 15 minutes each day and can continue until the reading problems are resolved. Encourage the child by making it into a fun game. Give your child positive attention while they read, which will create a positive association with reading aloud.
Auditory Processing
Posted on April 12, 2010 by Sound Therapy
Auditory processing disorder is common across most learning difficulties. Even if the primary functional problem is visual or motor, this processing is highly interactive and involves the auditory system. This is because the brain is a highly integrated system in which each sensory system interacts with others to help us make sense of our world.
The auditory sense is, in many ways, the sense with the most profound impact on our learning. Language is how we communicate about all topics, and hearing is more highly integrated into our nervous system than any other sense.
For this reason, any child with a learning difficulty is likely to benefit from Sound Therapy. Sound Therapy supports auditory processing and has also been shown to improve other sensory processes (visual, motor skills, balance) and inter-sensory integration.
Successful listening and learning depend on good auditory processing. Auditory processing is the ability to translate a stream of vocal sounds into words and meaning, and then recreate those sounds as speech.
Effective auditory processing depends first on accurate hearing. A child must be able to see the letter, hear the sound of the letter, say the sound, relate the sound to the written symbol for the letter, register it, and store it in the auditory cortex so that in the future they can relate the letter symbol to the sound again and recreate it vocally. Then they need to be able to blend the letter and its sound with all the other letters that form a word. Therefore, much more than hearing is required for successful use of language.
A fractional delay at any stage of perception and vocalization can lead to significant difficulties in learning the complex literary skills of reading, writing, and spelling. While difficulties in speech may go unnoticed in the early years, they become more pronounced under pressure to perform at school and to translate spoken words into written skills.
Timing is a very crucial aspect of auditory processing, because a slight delay can mean the sounds are heard or perceived or reproduced in the wrong order. Such difficulties with linear sequential processing make it extremely difficult for the student to take notes and write. Poor auditory memory may be part of the problem, and a person who is otherwise quite intelligent may have significant academic difficulties when these functions are impaired.
How Sound Therapy may help
Right ear dominance: Sound Therapy recordings are designed to deliver louder sound to the right ear. This improves the brain’s efficiency in processing language because the right ear connects to the left hemisphere, which is the language centre. The result is improved reading and vocal skills.
Sound Therapy stimulates brain pathways that enable rapid transmission of information from the ear to the brain and from the brain to the vocal apparatus. When processing speed increases, it is easier for the student to keep up and avoid constantly struggling with jumbled information when it is received in the wrong order.
* Full credit for this material and questionnaire is given to Sound Therapy International.
