The Listening Program

Chloe is starting her 10th album of "The Listening Program" this week. In May her biggest word was "Baboo". It had no meaning. It was like a baby saying gaga googoo. We knew she'd say Mommy & Daddy next because our speech therapist told us. She was right. It's a natural progression, it is just very delayed for Chloe. From May to October things didn't change much. In fact, at the end of July, Chloe had 39 words. The list included stuff like - hi, bye, mommy, daddy, no, poopoo. Pretty basic stuff.

On October 6th, Chloe started The Listening Program. We were huge skeptics! It cost over $700 and what could listening to this music do to help her??? We were so skeptical that we spent another $800 that we didn't have to go to the training for providers. We had to know more. We left our training in Denver in complete shock at the case studies we had seen (video) and read. The CEO of Advanced Brain Technologies actually conducted the training. It was so amazing that Quinn, Joe and I are all on the program.

It is now January 5 and Chloe is speaking in sentences. We had her IEP (school) recently and her speech therapist said her goal has changed from putting the final sound on words (she only said "ba" for bed, bird, blanket, etc. and "ta" for table, toy, town, etc.) to utterances of 5 or more.

Chloe is now speaking in sentences!!!! Her teachers send us notes almost every week saying that they are astonished by Chloe's language. Her speech therapists are amazed! Joe's mom visited for Thanksgiving and couldn't believe the improvement in Chloe's speech (she hadn't seen her since August). My parents visited for Christmas and my dad commented that Chloe's language is improving daily!

She asks "why?" at least 100 times a day now! Never thought something like that would make me so happy!!

Some other changes we have noticed...
Chloe isn't falling all of the time. There seems to be a real improvement in her balance.
She used to freak out if you tickled her softly or played with her hair. Now she is constantly saying, "Tickle me Mommy (or Daddy or Nanny or whoever's willing).
Brushing her teeth was one of the worst parts of our day! Joe and I would argue over who had to do it. It's not a problem anymore! She stands there with her mouth open almost as well as any other child.
Her relationships are improving. She doesn't hit as much as she used to (she still hits some). I think this has to do with improved ability to communicate.
She has also started to eat some meat - she ate a piece of turkey bacon the other day. Her first ever. Tonight she ate a piece of deli ham. It's progress.

The program has been used for so many things - Down Syndrome, Autism (lots of studies), auditory processing disorder, stroke patients and more. It has truly been a blessing in our lives!

If you want to know more, you can go to: www.thelisteningprogram.com.