Category: Tomatis

Music For Now

January 16, 2021

Tomatis Helps Relieve Emotional Stress

mother and child listening to tomatis in headphones for emotional wellness

The emotional toll of our responsibility to keep our children safe while trying to maintain a life, weigh heavily upon us whether they are typically developing or special needs children.

The difficulty to maintain balance between structure, education and fun for the development of our children has resulted in unprecedented levels of sadness & anxiety in our kids and ourselves. We are here to help you center and find a more peaceful place.

We know the ultimate solution is still several months away.

Most of us turn to music, as a key to assist our mood. The music we seek when we want to be energized changes when we want to relax. Music you choose to listen to varies when you exercise, clean house, work or study. When we want to sleep, you’re probably not going to turn on hard rock. Those emotion based decisions are not accidental. They’re a consequence of the qualities of the individual pieces of music.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could listen to music that’s been specifically designed to have those positive emotional impacts at this time? With the Tomatis Method, I have the precise skills to control the elements of the music to assist people in gaining the balance they’re seeking. It’s possible for individuals and families to train together. It can also be a wonderful bonding experience for parents and children.

If you have questions, feel free to send an email or contact me here at Listen for Change.

Tomatis: “When Is Too Early, When Is Too Late?”

November 21, 2020

This is often the first question I’m asked as a Tomatis practitioner. The beautiful thing about our brains is that they’re open to change for much of our lives. The technical name for this is neuroplasticity. This means as long as you can learn, your brain can change. Tomatis is planned stimuli to create the change we’re looking for.

Mother and daughter listening to Tomatis Method

Babies & Toddlers:

Did you know that hearing through bone conduction begins in utero? The Tomatis Method incorporates bone conduction. With latest technology, we can now work with infants. Some infants are born irritable or dysregulated. They may have difficulty eating, eliminating or sleeping. I’ve used the Tomatis method in the NICU with premature, small, and sick babies. Later, babies may exhibit issues with:

  • eye contact,
  • babbling,
  • reaching
  • interest in their environment

The most common reason parents seek my services is that the child has issues with speech and language. Tomatis’ unique ability to connect the ear and brain, make it a logical choice at this time.

Attention difficulties are another common reason for seeking Tomatis. While high activity level is easy to recognize as you chase your child around, there are other kinds of attention issues where children just can’t focus even when sitting quietly.

Other young children have difficulty moving or crawling around their environment. All these things form the foundation for language, emotional connections, motor control, and learning.

Teens:

Being a teen is such a challenging time for anyone. Compounding this with the knowledge that you’re different than others can lead to bouts of sadness, opposition, anger or depression. It’s hard to form solid friendships when others   don’t have the patience to hang around while you gather your thoughts and try to express them.

Adults:

Adults may have found they can’t maintain their attention. This can be in the conference room or with your spouse. As an aging adult, we notice a subtle shift in some of our faculties.  There have been several books specifically highlighting the Tomatis Method to help you be the best you can be.

In this interview, Dr. Norman Doidge discusses the Tomatis method as useful in addressing difficulties that can hold back anyone. People are moving towards methods to better care for themselves. There are chapters in other books about using the Tomatis method during pregnancy for the betterment of the infant as well as the mother. We sometimes recommend that children and mothers train together for a special bonding experience. We have also found it of particular value to people who have had brain trauma and PTSD.

The Elderly:

Tomatis has a particular value for the aged. We don’t just hear through our ear, but we hear through our bones as well. For example, we’ve all had the experience of feeling drum beats through our bones.

Hearing is prone to deterioration with age, but our bone hearing remains more intact. Stimulating bone conduction helps your brain to rely more on that information, giving you the sensation that your hearing is better. We’ve all witnessed how music can “revive” people in their later years.

The Tomatis Method is not defined by an age group. For as long as you can learn, you can grow. Learning takes place in every stage of life. Your needs are addressed through individualized programs. Music lights up the brain, let it light up yours!

Center Yourself To Center Your Children

October 22, 2020

Caring for Your Children

Taking care of yourself is key to taking care of your children. We are being so bombarded by situations and information we don’t typically deal with. Most of us are making significant changes in our lifestyle accordingly. Our routines with the external world have been seriously disrupted. This includes children’s school, our work, and seeing our friends and family to name a few.

Many of us are finding this trying and disheartening. We have to continue to find ways to reinvent our normal and pass through this time.

One of your highest priorities should be taking care of yourself; not just acting “ok” but being “ok”. Our children are so connected to us that they sense any shift in our emotional state.

So how do we meet this challenge?

Consider:

  • carving out time for yourself
  • indulging in self care
  • exercising
  • getting outdoors
  • breathing
  • communicating with family and friends

Tomatis sessions for children and parents

On a more practical level,

  • create new routines
  • plan things in advance
  • have fun, be silly
  • take control of your life where you can

It’s easy to feel oppressed by all the changes we’re enduring, especially when there’s no end in sight. Throwing up your hands and leaving your fate to the wind is possibly the worst thing you can do. Work on yourself and your children in trying to seize this new and novel opportunity, and turn it into a positive experience and memories.

As a Tomatis practitioner, it resonates with me that Dr. Tomatis closely linked the mother’s voice to the wellbeing of the child. The ear is the first organ to develop in utero, and continues to be a source of comfort throughout the life cycle. I encourage mothers to do Tomatis training together with their child. It is both organizing and affirming of your relationship, and will give your child a stronger foundation from which he can change and grow.

Motor Planning

August 28, 2020

Playing with Purpose

cartoon boy on tummy on scooter to improve physical motor planning and postural control

Motor Planning is the ability to move your body in ways necessary to accomplish a task.

      • Delays in accomplishing motor milestones.
      • Issues performing new or novel tasks that should be within the child’s repertoire. Such as, circling arms forward but not able to circle backward. They can jump but can’t jump in a circle.
      • Trouble stringing together a succession of movements or actions, like on an obstacle course. They have each skill such as jump, hop, and squat, but can’t figure out how to do them in rapid succession.
      • Issues making the two body sides work together in a coordinated fashion at the same time (like jumping) or reciprocally (like skipping).

After a brief period of learning, it should come naturally and the child shouldn’t need to think hard about how to accomplish the new motor tasks.

If you have trouble motor planning, the large actions of your body, you’ll also likely have issues with the finer actions of your hands, mouth and/or eyes. In general, we work in a developmental progression, which means we deal with the large body actions first.

Here are some fun possibilities for working on motor planning at home:

      • Use scooter boards and pull your child as fast as they can tolerate in many different positions, such as sitting or lying on their tummy. Attach a rope to a stable object, such as a door, and let them pull themselves hand over hand.
      • Try Jumping-Jacks
      • Ride on a sled while trying to maintain stability and your path
      • Have a dance party and teach each other moves
      • Play on the Monkey Bars at the park
      • Follow the leader as you move your bodies in different positions and patterns

young boy child using monkey bars for motor planning& postural control

The activities we’ve emphasized are whole body motor planning activities. When the brain gets the message of how to do these full body activities, we frequently see a trickle effect to other types of motor planning. Such as, fine motor control for the hands, eyes, and mouth.

Many academic pursuits are based on motor planning accomplishments. Reading, for example, requires that your eyes move together smoothly across the page. Learning the alphabet and number concepts require you to follow a left to right progression.

Working on motor planning can be a whole family activity. Don’t think about the work you’re doing, just think about the fun! (Pic: ice skating, family dance party)

If you need help with specific activities for your child, please don’t hesitate to contact me.

Keep up with our most current ideas and information by following our Facebook page.

Sensory processing problems, frequently underlay issues of postural control and motor planning. Consider a Tomatis sound training program. During the pandemic, our home programs are especially popular. We love having the opportunity to take these extended periods of time at home and turn them into productive time for the children.

A Mother’s Own Words Today (July 2020)

July 21, 2020

A Real-Life Testimony of Tomatis

 

Tomatis child's painting of elephants during first intensive

A 3.5-year-old boy referred for Tomatis by a neuropsychologist, presented with:

  • high activity level
  • not attending
  • very hyper-sensitive to sounds like vacuum cleaners, children crying, etc.
  • behavioral issues
  • excessive loud vocalizations
  • not following directions
  • limited word use with poor articulation
  • not playing with other children

Are you seeing any changes?

“Yes! He is quieter and more attentive. I think he became quieter around day 4. He listens to us and repeats a lot of words even when we don’t ask him to. When we talk to him, he’s trying to communicate better. His pronunciation has also improved. I think all the changes within last two weeks in his daily routine, plus new place [our vacation home] with lake and sand every day, was a good base and the right time for us to start these listening sessions. We (all 4 adults) see how he improved!

He was watching the iPad yesterday and was trying to sing a song… It was “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” … I felt like he knew the words. He also pronounced the words correctly, everybody understood.

I read about Tomatis before we started. A lot of people were seeing changes after 2 full therapy parts (14 days + 14 days). We see changes now.”

Seeing improvements so soon is not uncommon. This is one of the reasons why, as a professional, I am so committed to the Tomatis Method.

Our initial goal was to decrease his hyper-sensitivity because it has such a global effect on how we function. Hyper-sensitivity is painful, as the individual is forced to deal with a constant barrage of sounds. The brain is not employing its ability to screen out what’s important from background noise. Hyper-sensitivity drives individuals into a “fight or flight” response. It’s not possible for the brain to learn and function adequately while in a continuous heightened state.

Once we decrease hyper-sensitivity the nervous system is better positioned to process the meaning of input and figure out what is important. Once the brain can get that far, it’s much more capable of formulating an appropriate response.

What happened

This child no longer finds the incoming stimuli painful; he is better able to attend and respond to it. We can see it in his:

  • improved attention,
  • desire to use words to communicate
  • attempts to sing songs
  • being more cooperative

These improvements have a tremendous benefit to his behavioral management and increased ability to learn. As the mother reports, it’s exciting to see such a leap in the first intensive. It gives us great hope for the next intensive and beyond.

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