jwilzewske: One-on-One ‘Chamber Music’ with Mom: Music Therapy for Sensory-Sensitive Kids

A ny suggestions on how to deal with a toddler who is terrified of certain sounds? Just the mere mention of the word ‘vacuum’ has her falling on the floor, face in her hands, yelling ‘No!’ Not only is she freaked-out by the vacuum but also by certain toys, by the opening song for the ‘Barney’ TV program, the hairdryer, the blender—and also, just recently, by thunder. Any advice would be appreciated.”
— Anonymous#1.

I had the same problem with my kid, starting around 2 and still somewhat an issue at 5. Not sure if being ‘overly sensitive’ is a possibility with your daughter, but my son kept getting his feelings hurt and would cry at the drop of a hat... not like throwing a fit, but instead like someone had broken his heart. A slow process waiting for this phase to pass!”
— Anonymous#2.

P lease don’t make me go hear that sad, sad music again,’ my son said. He was so frightened about it that we eventually said, ‘Okay, you don’t have to go.’ After that, my husband and I took turns going to Mass vs. staying home with our son.”
— Laura Heneghan, quoted in Miller & Fuller, p. 15.

I was just such a kid myself, and I still have some features of it even today as an adult. I am oversensitive to certain sounds; I cannot maintain a pace to tell a joke; I have lapses in tactfulness when I am inordinately ‘jumpy’; I over-react to certain sonic stimuli. Can’t seem to help it.

F or example, music played very quietly—what the people who are playing it say is ‘just background music’—just makes me go ballistic. And their dismissiveness: their saying that such tiny, innocuous sounds as they are making with their soothing, nondescript, scarcely-audible ‘background music’ can’t possibly be annoying to anyone at all—‘It’s inconceivable!’—aggressively asserting that I have no legitimate basis whatever for complaint: this naturally makes me even more angry. My sonic defensiveness must be ‘all in my head’, ‘not real’, ‘invalid’—is what their denials mean. Only ‘loud’ music could possibly be objectionable—is what their refusals imply.

W ell, in the immortal words of Mandy Patinkin to Wallace Shawn, “I do not think that word [‘inconceivable’] means what you think it means.”

I n fact, any monotonous background sound pattern that is too quiet to be heard in detail infuriates me, drives me mad. And yet sitar music and traditional Chinese music and ‘minimalist’ compositions that have just the merest, subtlest hints of variations in notes’ attacks and releases—and which go on and on, for 30 minutes at a time or more—all of these are pleasantly, peculiarly fascinating to me. Maybe it is this way, too, for others who have SPD-type symptoms?

A t any rate, these are the sole remaining remnants of what was, for me, undoubtedly SPD. Except that SPD did not exist as a diagnosis back when I was a kid, and nobody knew to do anything about it. Except immerse the kid in music, methodically, gradually...

I just recently received the two SPD-related emails (2 blockquotes) above. I do intermittently browse the research literature, just out of curiosity in light of my own history and situation, to see what the current status of SPD and its clinical treatments may be—and, I thought it might be helpful to post some links (below).

T apping tunes:
‘I’m going to tap out the rhythm of a song that you know... Listen and tell me what the song is.’ [When the child guesses correctly, sing/tap/play the song together.]
Benefits: Listening to rhythms improves auditory discrimination and aural awareness. Connecting rhythmic patterns with words promotes auditory association and memory. Using hands to tap or beat a rhythm provides tactile and proprioceptive stimuli to associate with sound and to diminish the degree to which acoustic input is 'dissociated' or frightening.”
— Kranowitz, OOS, p. 159.

M atching sounds:
‘Ten identical containers, such as small opaque plastic bottles; five different kinds of small familiar objects, such as rice, paperclips, pennies, buttons, toothpicks. Shake a container and guess what's inside. Then find the other one of the other 9 containers that has the same thing in it. Shake the two containers at the same time, to be sure they match.’
Benefits: Listening to and differentiating the sounds of containers’ contents improves auditory discrimination, auditory memory, and integration of sonic expectations.”
— Kranowitz, OOS, p. 161.

S cale songs:
‘Franz Joseph Haydn’s mom used to play seven tones of scale to get him up in the morning. She would play 7 notes of scale but not play the octave. Franz Joseph couldn’t stand it. He had to run downstairs and play the top ‘C’ to finish the scale. I will do that now. You cover your eyes while I play some notes, and then when I tell you, uncover your eyes and come and play the note that will finish the scale, just like little Franz Joseph and his mom Maria used to do.’
Benefits: ‘Scale songs’ reinforce rhythmic and sonic awareness. Moving while seeking to find the note that will complete the octave that mom didn't finish helps to integrate muscular/motor/vestibular systems. Pitch training makes sounds less disorienting and frightening. Pre-attentive preparatory efforts improve skills in attending to sounds and lower the threshhold for awareness of sounds.”
— Kranowitz, OOS, p. 162.

F irst identified in the 1960’s by the late A. Jean Ayres (1920-1988), ‘sensory processing disorder’ (SPD) is a developmental disorder in:

neurological processing and cognitive organizing of sensory information;
assigning meaning to what is experienced;
acting or responding to situations in an adaptive, purposeful manner;
also known as Sensory Integrative Dysfunction (DSI).

S ensory Processing Disorder does not ‘go away over time’ without therapeutic intervention. Kids don’t ‘out-grow’ it. And, in many cases, SPD doesn’t ‘go away’ even with the best available interventions and treatments. The child simply learns to cope with it, practices ways to make the symptoms less frequent and less severe, and structures her/his activities (and eventual career/profession) to take advantage of the sensory-cognitive gifts and sensory-cognitive deficits that she/he has.

T LP listening sessions—which have been pursued with some success by a couple of the nurse-moms who I interact with at work and have known professionally for 6 to 20 years, for their own SPD kids—are typically fifteen minutes in length, done once or twice a day, five days a week, using stereo headphones that cover the ears. The efficacy of TLP, Tomatis, and other sensory-stimulation occupational therapy/music therapy programs has not been proven in clinical trials yet (see systematic-review articles and meta-analyses published by Sinha and others, for current status of scientific evidence), but neither have these therapies been shown to be ineffective.

Y et, qualitatively and anecdotally, I do know from the two nurse-mom-friends that these therapies yielded noticeable improvements in their kids’ behaviors and level of stress.

T he triggers of the symptoms or sensitivity leading to fright or acting-out seem to be multi-factorial and idiosyncratic: the child’s level of fatigue or stress, the time of day, the situation or social setting where the sonic stimuli occur. The interventions that can blunt or extinguish an over-sensitive episode are just as idiosyncratic.

F or me, Sarabandes and Courantes are the best medicine—and other calming dance music, preferably Baroque… Sitting in a backyard swing on a sunny summer day and auto-stimulating my differently-abled vestibular system by twisting the swing clockwise, holding still there for a few seconds, and then reversing the swing to un-twist it, anti-clockwise... listening to Bach medium-loud, watching clouds overhead!

Note: CMT blog should not be considered as medical advice, and the remarks in these blog posts are not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Never delay or disregard seeking professional medical advice from your physician, pharmacist, or other qualified healthcare provider because of something you have read on CMT. You should always speak with your doctor before you start, stop, or change any prescribed part of your care plan or treatment.

jwilzewske

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

One-on-One ‘Chamber Music’ with Mom: Music Therapy for Sensory-Sensitive Kids

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