Auditory Training Programs

Auditory Training uses electronically modified music and language to stimulate the auditory pathways and enhance auditory neural plasticity to assist and improve auditory processing abilities. Auditory training enhances the ability of the auditory system to differentiate between fine differences in frequencies and other auditory skills, which are a pre-requisite for language development, and for the processing of all auditory information. Difficulties in processing sound to its full potential can manifest themselves auditory processing difficulties, poor auditory attention, poor short term auditory memory skills and other difficulties such as learning difficulties, including poor reading and spelling, poor communication skills, poor co-ordination and balance, and difficulties with sensory integration.

The Auditory Training Programs at the Listen And Learn Centre use Integrated Listening Systems technologies, the technologies of Christophe Besson and the techniques of Dr Alfred Tomatis. This combination of technologies and auditory training methods and protocols used at the Listen And Learn Centre are world leading.

Auditory Training Programs at the Listen And Learn Centre can be undertaken as:

	Intense clinically supervised centre based program using the most advanced technologies
	Intense home auditory training programs
	School and home programs based on portable devices

Auditory Training based on the techniques of Dr Alfred Tomatis

Dr Alfred Tomatis pioneered psychoacoustics and auditory training over 50 years ago. In the 1950s and 1960s when electronics were still in their infancy, Dr Tomatis developed techniques to modified music with the principle aim to re-educate the auditory system, by stimulating and improving the way in which we process incoming auditory information and thus the way that we listen and communicate.

Auditory training is provided using an electronic processor, the design of which is based on the collaborative work between Christophe Besson and Dr Alfred Tomatis in the decade preceding Dr Tomatis's death in 2001. The latest equipment incorporates the benefits of recent electronic circuitry and design refinements, without compromising the original principles set down by Dr Tomatis, plus the clarity of remastered 24 bit music in order to deliver cutting edge auditory training. 

Members of the Listen And Learn Centre have undertaken international training in the protocols and techniques utilised by practitioners of the Tomatis method of auditory training. More on the Tomatis method....

Integrated Listening Systems - iLs

Go to the Integrated Listening Systems page....

                                               and visit the iLs Australian website: www.integratedlistening.com.au

Auditory Processing Disorder

APD is also known by the following names: central auditory processing disorder - CAPD, auditory perceptual processing dysfunction, auditory comprehension deficit, central deafness or word deafness.

Deafness, however, does not play a role in APD. An important distinction with this disorder is that hearing is rarely impaired - that is, the child is able to hear the sounds perfectly but cannot process the meaning of the sound. There is no relationship between intelligence and APD as the disorder reflects a problem with a specific auditory function rather than intellectual capacity. Another feature of the disorder is that it presents itself inconsistently. On some occasions a child may have no processing problems, but other days may struggle to decode the same message.

APD is a problem in the auditory decoding of language, which very often leads to the deterioration of behaviour as a result of poor expressive and receptive communication. As children experience the discouragement of being misunderstood and the frustration of misunderstanding others, they become more disconnected from their environment and the people around them.

Many other conditions in children are made worse by an accompanying auditory processing disorder. Children who have autism, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, dyslexia, language problems, aphasia or learning disabilities often have concurrent problems with auditory processing. Treatments designed to deal with APD have been shown to have positive implications for these children, supporting the idea that auditory processing is central to behaviour and learning.

The term 'auditory overload' is often used to describe what happens to people who have APD. Auditory overload is a sense of being overwhelmed and relates to features of the information being received. If information is highly specific, spoken quickly, lacking in contextual cues, described in unfamiliar language or presented in a noisy environment, it will be very difficult for someone with APD to comprehend the message or follow through with instructions.

The indicators of Auditory Processing Disorder