This morning, I had jury duty. So Lynne, our great nanny, took Nathan to occupational therapy without me.
During therapy, Melanie put headphones on Nathan and was playing classical music for him. Lynne said that he immediately seemed to become more focused and able to pay more attention to the room and people around him. Okay - wow. What was that? I have shot off an email to Melanie (therapist) to get her thinking. Meanwhile, of course I can't bear to NOT search the web for anything I can find (you know my method, ask everyone and search the web and see what seems to agree and make the most sense).
I searched on headphones and occupational therapy and any number of other combinations of words like that. I found two things.
First, I found The Listening Program. And, guess what? My new occupational therapist just happens to be a provider for this program. So, this must have been what Melanie was doing with Nathan. Interesting! Reading more, I am learning that this type of 'learning therapy' helps children with all kinds of issues - people with all kinds of issues actually. The types of behaviors it helps sound a bit like Nathan - an exception is that they say children with these types of hearing/learning issues tend to be frustrated. Nathan doesn't seem to be a frustrated child. He is very agreeable. My guess is that these frustrated kids aren't 3 - they're 6 or 7. I could be wrong, though.
Second, I found an overview of the research that this program is based on - The Tomatis Method . This website is fascinating. The method has been scientifically researched and studied and has been shown to help all sorts of issues - ADD, ADHD, Autism, learning delays, language delays (hello! that's us!) and more. Dr Tomatis' research shows that how we hear affects our ability to learn. He found that the right ear (directly attached to the left brain) is more attuned to language learning. He also found that we can TEACH our ears/brains to hear better. He developed special headphones and music to facilitate training our hearing.
This is all I know right now. I will report in as I learn more. I have my 2nd sensory integration lecture this Wednesday. Needless to say, I'll be asking about this. And, I'm going to call our developmental pediatrician to see what he thinks.
Oh, and on top of all this for a hyper mommy, we have our Dekalb County school system evaluation this Thursday morning to see if Nathan will be accepted into the special preschool that Dekalb Co runs for special needs kids. It is a mixed environment - so, typically developing kids are in class with the special needs kids. I have not heard one bad thing about this place. I can not wait to learn more about it!
Most school districts now have a special needs preschool environment that children with special needs can attend starting at age 3. It's kind of strange here in Georgia - they can start when they TURN 3. So, if your child turns 3 in March, they can go there through the end of May before school is out for the summer. Nathan turns 3 in November, so he'll have most of the school year.
Honestly, I don't know how to tell you to find these places. If I hadn't been pointed to it by our early intervention program here in Georgia, I think I would've just called the school district. School district people should know where to send you to get your child the help that you need.
Needless to say, I have to calm down - last week it was the Deep Pressure and Joint Compression program. This week it is The Listening Program. It's important to keep perspective - he's a kid. We need to have FUN with him and LOVE him!
So, on that note, I'll leave you with a - happy playing!
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