"Intellectual distinction is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for election to a Rhodes Scholarship. Selection committees are charged to seek excellence in qualities of mind and in qualities of person which, in combination, offer the promise of effective service to the world in the decades ahead. The Rhodes Scholarships, in short, are investments in individuals rather than in project proposals..."

Friday, May 27, 2011

Follow Up to Theraputic Listening

In December, I posted that I was starting one of my children on The Listening Progam, a theraputic listening program for auditory processing disorders.  I preceded symptoms on a check list with X's on it representing areas in which I though the LP could help.  I've now remarked it with an O if the problem is significantly better or gone.
X 1. Difficulty paying attention
X 2. Poor short-term memory
0X 3. Poor reading comprehension
0X 4. Difficulties spelling
0X 5. Low academic/job performance
X 6. Difficulty starting and/or completing projects
0X 7. Easily distracted in presence of background noise
8. Is oversensitive to certain sounds
0X 9. Misunderstands directions or instructions
0X 10. Confuses similar sounding words
    11. Difficulty understanding jokes/puns/humor
0X 12. Frequently asks “huh” or “what”
0X 13. Difficulty discriminating sounds
    14. Flat and monotonous voice quality
    15. Speech lacks fluency and rhythm
0X 16. Difficulty sounding out words
0X 17. Mispronounces words
0X 18. Difficulty summarizing a story/expressing thoughts
X 19. Hyperactivity
   20. Has poor posture, including slouching or slumping
   21. Has coordination problems
X 22. Difficulty with organization and planning
   23. Is overwhelmed with sensory information
   24. Confusion of right and left and/or location and direction
  25. Lack of tactfulness
  26. Poor social skills
0X 27. Feels overburdened with everyday tasks
  28. Low stress/frustration tolerance
  29. Difficulty reading non-verbal communication
  30. Poor self-image or low self-confidence  '

It took us 20 weeks to get through the program with a few fits and starts in between.  The progress has been  significant, especially in the area of spelling.

4 comments:

queen of the castle said...

Cathie, I think this might my daughter! All these years I have suspected "autism spectrum", but these auditory symptoms are more familiar. We haven't had the financial resources to get her tested at Fraser or another specialist recommended by our piano teacher (Dr. Susan Storti).

Do you have suggestions about how to get an accurate diagnosis before starting the listening program (which is unavailable through Amazon bty)?

The Road Scholar said...

Tracy,
We too actually sought a "diagnosis" for one of our kids because we assumed she might be "on the spectrum." Alas, her issues were related to this AND food allergies. For her, milk was like a drug.
We did seek some professional help and she was referred to an occupational therapist and a speech/language therapist. They recommended The Listening Program.

I see that the program is not available on Amazon. We had to get it through an authorized provider. Here's the link to the actual website: http://www.thelisteningprogram.com/Overview.asp
You could do one of two things...try contacting an authorized provider (see the web site)OR consider contacting the school district. The latter runs the risk of more intervention than I would want.

just_hannah_p said...

Those are some impressive results.

The Road Scholar said...

I agree. I might have thought maybe some of it was developmental, but there were JUST too many changes to ignore. For me, it was the phonemic awareness that she had, all of a sudden (some where around week 12) when she no longer argued about doing spelling.

When my son used it, he went from hearing th's as f to actually hearing the th's. That was huge. He didn't have discrimination skills, no matter how many examples I gave him.