Listen4Life - Helping Bright Sensitive Kids Rediscover A Love Of Learning

Integrated sensory programs for listening, learning and wellbeing

Helping bright sensitive children rediscover a love of learning

Gentle programs help normalise attention, learning and behaviour. By re-training the way you listen, we can improve learning performance because listening, attention, comprehension and learning are highly correlated.

Our programs are designed to help unlock the potential of every client – particularly children
By identifying your performance deficits and by addressing your learning difficulties this will, unlock what you can achieve in life. We would like every client to reach their full potential. Our programs are designed to help your child to make full use of their talents so they can make a valued contribution to both their family and society at large.

… so we offer these gentle drug-free programs

Listening therapy (also known as sound therapy or music-based auditory stimulation)

These programs are helpful for those with:

A learning difficulty,
Performance or auditory processing deficits,
Those with poor listening,
Sound sensitivities, hearing distortions,
Attention difficulties,
Muffled or unclear speech,
Perceptual difficulties,
Overloads easily (sensory integration challenges) or
Those with development delays.
On the basis of your assessment performance, we will advise which program is most appropriate for you or your child.

What is “integrated” listening?
iLs programs “re-train” the parts of the brain involved in learning, communicating and moving. Combining an auditory program with specific visual and vestibular stimulation, iLs strengthens neurological pathways and improves the ability to learn and to process information.

A well-modulated vestibular system is essential for controlling the nervous system’s level of arousal. The vestibular, auditory and visual are our three main systems for organizing sensory input, and they are highly interrelated. Stimulating all three senses simultaneously is a holistic approach which requires and educates the brain to become better at processing multi-sensory inputs which engulf us in our everyday lives.
Each iLs system includes equipment for balance and visual activities, as well as a Playbook to guide you through the physical activities to be done while listening.

These physical activities enhance the efficacy of the listening therapy and provide important vestibular and visual stimulation. The Playbook includes background information, a listening schedule and a pre and post-program checklist. Complete the prescribed balance and visual activities for half the session time.

What else can I do while listening?
The remainder of the session can be filled with any quiet, relaxing activity such as:

Painting & drawing,
Construction activity - LEGO, K'NEX etc
Jigsaw puzzles,
Knitting,
Sample games like Connect Four and Snap, or
Relaxing comfortably
It is better not to read, eat or chew gum (too noisy), watch TV, play video games or do anything stressful.

The current theory is that Listening therapy improves auditory processing speed by stimulating improved mylenation of the auditory pathways. Listening therapy also improves the integration between the various senses and support a more harmonious balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. Gerritsen (2009)

At first glance, it appears as if our ears, our eyes and inner ear (balance) work independently – and that they have their own discreet neurological pathways that co-ordinate, or manage, each individual function. This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Each of these three systems talks to and receives information from the other two systems at all times.

The elaborate communication system between these three major senses must be coordinated smoothly and efficiently for optimal functioning to occur. This communication is achieved through what is called an integrated system: auditory, visual and vestibular (balance).

Electrical Stimulation: Sound waves entering the outer ear are transformed into electrical impulses in the inner ear and sent to the brain; those impulses provide energy to the brain and influence our ability to focus and sustain attention. (Brain scans show, for example, that children with AD /HD lack ‘energy’ in key parts of the brain for attention and focus. )

Movement + filtered music: Movement, through the interaction of the vestibular system and cerebellum, maximizesthe consolidation and integration of gains achieved in auditory retraining.
Listening vs hearing

There is an important distinction between hearing and listening. Hearing describes the process of collecting sounds while Listening describes what you do with those sounds thatyour ears collect. The quality of your listening affects balance and coordination, spoken and written language, alertness, creativity, and the ability to focus. How well you listen also influences your social development, confidence and self-image.

At one end of the spectrum are thosedeepin the autistic spectrum, who can hear perfectly, but areunable to listen. In contrast, we see clients who work very hard to interpret every nuance of sound captured by their very poor hearing – this is the difference between a good and a bad listener.


Listening is shaped very early
Listening is a process that begins before birth - from the fourth month after conception. Sound literally helps the brain and the nervous system of the foetus to grow. Our mother’s voice is the first voice we hear and is I believe the most significant sound we ever hear. The quality of our mother’s voice plays a critical and foundational role in our ability to listen and communicate. Consequently, clinic-based auditory retraining, where practicable, uses a recording of the mother’s voice along with Mozart and the Gregorian chant.
Our maternal language is hard-wired, as is any very early exposure to a second or third language. That is why The “Australian ear” is so different from a “Japanese, an “American” or a “European” ear. So we each develop a unique set of neural pathways for language. These pathways profoundly influence our ability to attend, understand and communicate. They also shape our capacity to learn to speak another language, particularly if that language uses frequencies that are not important in our mother tongue.