Week 3 completed

We completed week 3 of The Listening Program. All went really well. We are still dealing with a very tired boy. We let him stay up till 7 last night for the first time this week and he is getting into lots of trouble today, but generally happy.

We had quite a few crying sessions this week and lots of "I'm tired" and general surly behavior. That's the big one to watch. Once this tiredness lifts, we know we have made some headway and he is now comfortable with the listening. I'm assuming that what we are going through now shows his challenge with the program.

We have had no complaints of nausea this week. He even listened in the car as I was driving to an IEP meeting at his new school.

That one incident of him using low volume speech has not recurred. It's loud all the time. As a matter of fact, last night I thought my head would explode. He was talking so loud and fast and constantly. i should tape him and upload the tape for you to hear. It's amazing. It's Broadband! He's broadcasting on all frequencies.

However, when I asked him to talk more quietly, he was able to for a little while. I guess, since the school refuses to help me with this, I will just have to interrupt him and constantly remind him about slow easy quiet speech. I hate to do that. I think it's really damaging coming from a parent. But it would be more damaging if it came from his peers. So I will do it. At least, now, he is able to regulate it when reminded. 2 years ago, he had no idea what his speech volume was or how to change it.

He even made a comment to me this week about how his voice sounds very different to him than it must sound to others because he doesn't think he is talking so loudly.

I forgot to write earlier that he can now tell when he has reached the end of a program. The CD provides a minute or so of silence between programs. I have been asking him to tell me when he reaches it since we began this and often, he didn't notice when he did. Now he is noticing and telling me so I can stop the CD. Maybe that means he's actually listening to it now?

Delinquent blogger

Mea culpa.

There are not a lot of specifics going on. We continued at 15 minutes a day on disk 1. Firstborn seems more tolerant of the listening at this point.

He has been very tired though. On Tuesday, he chose to go to bed at 6:30 pm because we had a talk about cranky and obstinate behavior. He doesn't want to be brat, but he has been lately. He seemed to do well on the new earlier bed time. Thursday night, DH decided to let him stay up till 7pm and he was a basket case again on Friday. I let him stay up till 7:30 Friday on the promise that he would sleep late Saturday. He didn't. He was a mess. He cried over things, argued with me and DH, caused trouble with his little brother and no end of other things to annoy us. We all took a nap on Saturday pm. We slept for 2 hours. Oops. Problems. They weren't tired on Saturday night, so I kept them up till 8 reading a book to bring them back down.

They both awoke at 7am. He seems a bit happier but still a bit stir crazy. He lost playing rights with his best friend yesterday so he is a bit antsie. (or is that auntsie?)

So we will continue on with early bedtimes this week. And we are on to disk 2. I also think a bit of time on the mini-trampoline would work wonders again today. They liked it last night.

Oh, ya. Yesterday, he ignored us when we asked him to do something. So, of course, we yelled at him for ignoring us, and he replied, " I didn't hear you. You know, I don't think those disk things are working..."

Clever, very clever.

Friday's Session

I could swear that on Thursday, he moderated his voice well. We were sitting at the dinner table and he was talking fast as usual, but not nearly as loudly as usual. Maybe it was a coincidence, but maybe this stuff is working.

Friday's listening session went very well. Therapist Lady has been suggesting that Firstborn do something resistive and physical while listening. So i sent him into the backyard with very expensive stereo system strapped to his waist. It worked. He did his listening and said it made him neither nauseous nor tired.

We have two days off before beginning again on Monday.

When will this end

Another day of tears. Another day of refusing to do what he is asked to do. I'm tired.

Firstborn refused to listen to me when I asked him to stop sharpening a pencil and get his shoes on so we could go. He explained that he needed the pencil to do his homework in the car on the way home and I promised to sharpen one and bring it along when I picked him up. He continued to sharpen and look at me defiantly. I know it's a stupid little thing, but it's the way it's done. I can't stand my family ignoring me when I say something. I know I can't stop this in DH, but I'd really like my kids to be good partners some day and this is definitely not a way to do it. So I took away his best friend for the day. No playdate with NDN (next door neighbor). He cried.

Later, when we got home and completed everything, he kept forgetting that he had lost playtime with NDN and asking to go over there. Every time I reminded him, he would cry.

I feel for him. I suspect some of this is being upset from the listening, but it could just be he's on the rag. You know, a mood.

So How'd it go today, you ask. Well, after a bit of fighting, he chose to read a book while listening in the living room. (after tears, why can't I watch TV while doing this? Why can't I play with the computer).

When he completed, he came into the kitchen to tell me with a smile on his face. How'd it go? I asked. It was OK. No Nausea? Nope. He finished the first CD. I had thought that there would be 15 tracks so he would do 3 each day for 5 days and then repeat the CD. So I looked in the book to see what gives and what the schedule should be.

In glancing through the book I noticed a list of approved and non-approved activities during listening.

You're not supposed to read. Well. Oops. Too many details for my very old brain. I'm so glad they wrote it all down or I will never get this right.

We both laughed at my mistake. Tonight he told daddy that "you can't do anything fun while you listen. No TV, no computer and No Reading either!"



I told him that someday he may really like listening. He wasn't convinced. :-)

Test Results

OK, so I had visions that when Therapist Lady called with Ken's results, I would be prepared with a pen and pad to take notes. I knew there would be lots of detail to remember and that I would have to pay a price for a written report.

Instead, I had been cuddling with Lastborn. Lastborn is far better behaved when he has a bit of cuddle time and lately, we just haven't had time to do this. So instead, I had to listen with no pad and paper and Lastborn vying for my attention. He didn't like me talking over his TV show. The joys of parenthood.

So, from what I can remember, Ken tested as being overall average in all areas of hearing/listening. It was in the subtleties of testing that nuances were found that we can improve with the listening therapy. He had to listen for things among competing sounds of different kinds. He seemed to hear things more clearly (or be able to discern them) through his right ear than his left. His hearing, while average across all frequencies seemed to be weakest in the spoken language range. Still not very bad though. He seemed to be able to hear better through bone conduction than through air conduction. Again, neither were bad, it would just be preferable for him to hear through air conduction than though bone conduction. Interesting. He also has a less than average ability to differentiate pitch. This would explain the voice anomolies.

So the results are nothing we can wave in front of the school to demand classroom modifications, but they were something we can measure to see how he is progressing through the program. Therapist Lady feels that we should see improvements in the vocal quality and speech processing over the term of the program.

Behavior or Accident?

Therapy seemed to be going well today. Firstborn was very chatty while wearing the headphones in the car. He was on song 9 (the last of the day's program) when I told him to make sure he tells me when it goes silent. He replied that it already was. We were only 1 minute into the track, so that seemed a bit weird. Thinking that maybe they made it really quiet to see if he could discern the music, I had him keep listening for 2 more minutes. He kept insisting that there was no music so after 3 minutes, I shut it off.

When we got to our driveway, I asked him to give me the headphones and he did. They had no cord in them. No wonder he didn't hear anything. Now I know he didn't tell me when he stopped hearing the music. I keep asking him to tell me when he doesn't hear the music. So I got mad at him and sent him to his room. I have no idea how much of the program he heard today. I made him listen to the program again when we got home. (That's when he told me it made him too sick to do his homework yesterday.) Again, he didn't complete the program because he said the machine was making a weird noise. I was on the phone with Therapist Lady and was unable to help him.

So the question: Is he doing this to avoid listening or was this an accident? We really need to talk today to make sure he is clear as to why he is doing this program.

Later in the day, Firstborn also broke down crying when I told him to come in from play.

Still sleepy

Day 2 and Firstborn was still sleepy when we got home from school. He did therapy in the car again on the way home. When I asked how he felt, he said OK.

He was very cranky throughout the rest of the day and arguing with us about everything.

I did the program that night while reading and felt fine.

The next day when we were talking about the program, he said that he had not been able to do his homework in the car on day 2 because he felt nauseous.

Day 1

I listened over lunch to the first exercise on the CD. I ended up having to throw half of my lunch out because it made me so nauseous. The rest of the afternoon, I was tired and sick. Not a good feeling.

So Firstborn listened on the way home from school. Our ride takes 20 minutes. He was half asleep when we got home and also said he didn't feel well. I think he is pretty clear on why we are doing this because we have gotten no arguments from him about having to do it. If it makes him feel this badly, I don't wonder why he didn't want to do it. He's such a great kid to put up with this.

This morning I suggested that he do the listening on the way home again since it makes him feel pretty bad right now. His only concern was that he wouldn't be able to do his homework in the car. When I told him he could do his homework while listening, he agreed that PM would be better than AM. I can't imagine trying to go to school feeling like that.

Which reminds me, I have to warn his teacher that this is going on.

EBay Rulz

The package came last Friday. Containing 10 CDs and a manual, it was all packaged in a leatherette case with the logo of the company emblazoned. I would much rather have skipped the fancy container and saved $50 they were charging for this fancy look and feel.

But that's alright. DH saved lots on the equipment by buying it on e-Bay. ABT insists that you use high quality equipment to do this program. So we settled on the Senheiser HD570 earphones and the Sony D-NE710 portable CD player. Far more fancy than I would usually give an 8 year old, but we will control his use, so that's alright. DH saved about $20 on each component by watching prices and bidding smart on e-Bay.