Jun 03 2008
Sensory Integration - Try a Little Music
My son has very sensitive hearing. When he was in Early Intervention, his Occupational Therapist tried AIT or Auditory Integration Therapy with him to prevent some of his meltdowns. Auditory Integration Therapy is a method that uses music modulated to remove different frequencies at random throughout a half hour CD. That was a particularly rough year - one of the students screamed often and that happens to be one of Gus’s worst triggers. I don’t know that the AIT normalized his hearing or if he simply adjusted over time, but he tolerates much more than he used to.
Lately, it seems that his sensitivity is increasing again. For the past couple of months he has been covering his ears again, and last week was shouting at people (his teacher included) because they were talking.
One thing that has helped him has been to play soft music for him. When he’s tired and having a meltdown at home, we let him go to his room and he’ll put on his favorite Cd’s. His teacher has mentioned using the headphones with some success - music can help him focus in addition to keeping him calm. I’ve offered to send in a few of his Cd’s from home. I’m pretty optimistic that they will help to make these last few weeks of regular school more pleasant.
I hope the last few weeks of the school year are smooth and that the music does the trick.
Thanks! He seems to have had a good day today, although I don’t know if he actually used the music or not - no one mentioned it!