Therapeutic Listening

At CTS, we use Therapeutic Listening as a key way to work with children who have trouble with sensory processing dysfunction, listening, attention, and communication.

Therapeutic Listening is listening protocol that uses music to support the functioning of a person’s auditory system and address such issues as self-regulation, sensory modulation, motor planning, and social connectedness.

Because our hearing connects to many parts of the brain, sound is a powerful way to access the nervous system and affect changes at all levels. The music in Therapeutic Listening albums gives the listener unique and precisely controlled sensory information.  A trained therapist custom-designs each client’s listening program, choosing among five different series of music, with more than 45 album selections.

The music has been electronically modified to highlight the parts of the sound spectrum that naturally trigger attention and activate the body to move. In addition to the electronic modifications, Therapeutic Listening capitalizes on music’s rhythmical sound patterns to trigger the nervous system’s ability to organize itself.

Practitioners and clients report the following as typical results of a Therapeutic Listening program:

Home/school changes

  • Improved social interactions
  • Improved communication skills
  • Enhanced ability to focus
  • Ability to make transitions or changes in routine more easily
  • Increased engagement with the world
  • Improvements in sleeping
  • Regulation of hunger and thirst cycle regularity
  • Toilet training/cessation of bed-wetting
  • Regulation of mood and energy level (overall a happier child, less irritable, less hyperactive or low arousal)
  • Improved ability to respond to sounds and verbal directions
  • Increased interest in and ability to explore playground equipment (swings, slides, climbing structures)

Clinic changes

  • Praxis and motor planning (coming up with an idea, planning and then completing the task)
  • Decreased fear of movement and fear of heights
  • Improved bilateral motor coordination (coordination between the left and right, top and bottom, and front and back side of the body)
  • Improvement in fine motor skills including handwriting
  • Better timing and sequencing of motor skills
  • Improved ability to perceive and navigate space
  • Ability to move on stable and dynamic surfaces
  • Reduction in sensory defensive behaviors (abnormal responses to sensory stimuli such as sounds, touch, taste, pain)