I do not recommend The Listening Program

[Student Mommie]

I wanted to share our experiences that the basic version of The Listening Program is a bad choice for ADHD. My child is not attentive to the music at all. Even on a loud headphone setting, he sings and talks to himself, totally tuning out the music. Whoops, bad buy...

[PeterPan]

I haven't used it, but did you try giving him something to do with his hands to keep him busy?  And you may need to take him out and do some serious PE or park time to wear him out, chill down the wiggles, THEN do the listening.  Or give him Calm Child (herbal for kids) or meds.  Or engage him on why he wants to do it.  (listen to this for 5 minutes with the timer in front of you, and when it goes off we will...)

 

Might be the time to whip out a new little $5 lego kit from the store.  Opening the box and figuring the kit out will keep him busy. Might be expensive after a while, but at least the therapy would get done.

 

I'm pretty pragmatic about therapy.  We pay $220 for a double therapy session and put $100 into gas because it's a long trip.  Right now we're doing that every week.  I make NO BONES about paying another $15 for a game to make sure it is something brand new so I know he'll stay engaged and won't throw the session.  He threw a session ONE TIME, and that was the end of that.  I buy stuff to make it fresh and new every time, so I KNOW he's going to be engaged.  

 

You could do little packs of collectible trading cards.  He gets the pack when he starts listening and loses the pack if he stops.  (If you do that, make sure you mean it.)  New pack every day he does the therapy.  

 

My ds adores playmobil, so for him the little $3 mystery figure bags would work.  Inside is a figure to assemble and all sorts of little attachments.  (frog man with a hat, air tank, weapon, head, etc.)  You might need to sit with him to do that, but still it would be fine AND it's awesome for fine motor.  :)

[Princess Ariel]

I cannot remember if that is the name of the one my dc did or not. But they were always active doing something (not ever reading) while they were listening. In therapy they even were on those large exercise balls, moving around, etc. They had some type of backpack or fanny pack to hold the CD while they did this. I think by the time ds did it last time, they had small MP3 players which made movement even easier. Ds has ADHD.

[Student Mommie]

Thanks, ladies.  So sweet to give me ideas.

 

The thing is, after talking to the Listening Program recently, they say that if the child is not actually putting attention on the music, then it won't have an affect-- and they say that for ADHD kids they now recommend some other program they developed where the kid is tapping out rhythms and things instead of listening to music.  

 

Before they told me this, I originally thought that just having The Listening Program as background music while the child does a quiet activity or motor exercises would be sufficient, that even if the child was not putting attention on it, that at least subconsciously it would be exercising and improving the auditory processing system.  However-- my child hyperfocuses to such an extent that the music blasting in his ears simply fades away and he doesn't even notice it.  As evinced by his humming a totally different song at the same time as having his Listening Program running!  (He is very verbal and rarely stops making some kind of noise.)  I tried encouraging him to hum along with the music to try to get his attention on the music, but after a very short while he's off in his own world again.

[PeterPan]

Not to be tacky or intrusive, but are you sure you have the right label?  You got a good private psych eval?  None of my business, but I've thought it both times when you described what's going on.

 

Anyways, that's interesting.  So they're jumping on the metronome work... You can do that for free with a metronome yourself, no need to plunk out again.  A program might be great but you might be able to make that happen yourself.  My ds is so impulsive, he really struggles to stay with a rhythm *at all*.  What I'm trying now that seems to work is digit spans.  I give him the 4 digits and we *clap* with each digit as we say them back.  That's all he can hold it together for rhythm.  The other stuff I've tried seems to lose him pretty quickly.  

 

We're stopping all efforts at that btw until we get evals.  There's just no point doing interventions and then eval'ing him.  I'm just saying after trying a lot of things I finally found a way to get it to work.  The frustrating thing for you would be if your ds happens to be like my ds and so far gone that he can't stay with ANY rhythm pattern.  Maybe he's not and he'll have a higher starting point and do better.  I'm just saying there's a certain amount of customization necessary and it would be frustrating to buy another program buy the same people and find it can't come down to the level your dc needs.  Or maybe it does?  I really don't know anything about it.  The only thing I've seen so far that has small steps (not that I have some thorough survey of the options) is Neuronet, which seems to start rhythm really gently with things like rolling a ball back and forth while you say something to that rhythm.  Those are the kind of baby steps my ds seems to need.  Jumping right in with metronome work he just can't last long at it. (30 seconds)

[djmama]

Thank you for sharing! We just got the dx of auditory processing disorder and were recommended to do The Listening Program and interactive metronome. I was in sticker shock and have been trying to research it more. We've already been doing a program at home tailored by a functional neurologist my son sees. I can't help thinking what if there is more that can help him. But my problem is sticking with the program instead of looking for greener pastures (quicker fixes). So I'll keep sticking with the program. Please keep sharing your experiences!