HOW LISTENING AFFECT OUR LIVES
Hearing and Listening
Do you think there is a difference between hearing and listening? You are right, there is! Hearing is simply the act of perceiving sound by the ear. If you are not hearing-impaired, hearing simply happens. Listening, however, is something you consciously choose to do. Listening requires concentration so that your brain processes meaning from words and sentences. Listening leads to learning. Just about everybody hears. But only so many people listen.
Auditory Problems
In adults, hearing vs. listening are sometimes related to auditory problems. These problems may manifest as difficulty retaining auditory information, poor job performance, poor attentiveness, sensitivity to sound, or speech/language and voice concerns. In children, auditory problems may be identified by speech and language problems, sensitivity to sounds, poor attention, learning or reading disabilities, difficulty remembering or following directions, difficulty in speech production or expressing oneself, difficulty with listening comprehension as well as reading comprehension, difficulty with social interactions, or auditory self-stimulation such as constant humming or self-talk.
Auditory stimulation programs, often referred to as "listening programs", have seen positive results for decades. “Solisten” is a new and advanced device that delivers superb auditory stimulation and delivers significant results for a broad variety of problems, especially when integrated with other therapies. It delivers the “Tomatis Effect” based on three laws: The voice only contains what the ear can hear; if hearing is modified, the voice is immediately and unconsciously modified; it is possible to achieve long-lasting phonation when auditory stimulation is maintained over a certain time.
Relational Noise
Roy Williams shares the following story in an interesting little book called Does Your Ad Dog Bite?. It offers a nice example of the challenge inherent in listening rather than merely hearing.
The average American cannot say “no.” This is why he or she is average. The temptation which defeats the average American is a thing called “Overchoice”, a deceiver which whispers, “You don’t have to choose. You can have it all.” “Overchoice” creates a world of too many options. One of my senior associates,
Jim Anderson will graphically illustrate “Overchoice” by showing you five or six ping pong balls. He will ask you to catch each of these balls as he gently tosses them to you.
Everyone catches the first ball easily. It is only when Jim tosses the rest of the balls together that people come up empty-handed. Instinctively attempting to catch all the balls, the average person will frantically flail the air and send ping-pong balls careening around the room. The only person that will catch a ball is that rare person who will focus on a single ball.
As Williams observes, when we have too much relational noise, we lose focus and “drop the ball.” We simply cannot attend in much detail to a particular voice, a particular person, a particular heart. “Overchoice”, says Williams, keeps us (and our relationships) average because it prevents us from focusing for very long on any one thing.
American culture conditions us to be “fast.” There are deadlines that need to be met, specific times people need to arrive for work and recreation, and multi-tasking seems to be the only way to accomplish everything in a 24-hour (minus sleeping hours) period. Hence the phrase, “there is never enough time in a day.” It’s more like, “people are unrealistically expected to do too much in a day.”
Focus
Focus is absolutely essential to doing things well, whether it’s building a model boat or building a relationship. In fact, there can be no real listening (to one another or to ourselves, for that matter) apart from focus. We can improve our relationships and our productivity if we consider what it means to really listen to the voices in our lives rather than simply trying to catch as much of the noise around us as we can.
Why do some children or adults become tired so much sooner than others when performing the same activity? Why do others remain energetic and ready to move on without needing so much recovery time?
Why can some people engage in multiple tasks or follow verbal directions at the same time while others spend inordinate amounts of energy to focus on one single task, thought or person?
Listening: a complex process
Dr. Alfred Tomatis developed a new and comprehensive understanding of the listening function and its effect on social, cognitive, emotional and motor learning in children and adults. He showed how our ability to listen affects our lives.
The French Ear, Nose and Throat specialist defined listening as separate from hearing. Listening is a complex process that is active and voluntary. He developed techniques and technologies to educate and strengthen our ability to listen, commonly referred to as the “Tomatis Method”.
The ear is much more than an organ of hearing. It affects functions including energizing and regulating the brain’s state of alertness and attention; coordinating posture and movement; and connecting our intentions and thoughts with our physical and verbal transactions upon our environment. It is physiologically involved in acquiring language and controlling the voice.
Dr. Tomatis discovered that our listening abilities affect our psychological development and our expression and communication capabilities. He recognized the strong impact of neuro-psychological aspects of good and poor listening skills for learning and personality development, and stressed that internal motivational aspects are equally important when learning to listen efficiently. He emphasized the interactive relationship between a well-developed vertical posture and good listening and communication skills. The vestibule controls balance, coordination, muscle tone and eye muscles. The cochlea analyzes sounds and affects sensory integration.
The vestibule and the cochlea work in harmony to relay sensory information to the brain. Tomatis compared the ear to a dynamo “which transforms the stimulations it receives into neurological energy intended to feed the brain." High frequencies charge the brain, low frequency sounds, by activating the vestibular canals, make our bodies move and drain energy. People whose brains are not sufficiently “charged” are handicapped in a fast moving, multitasking environment like our society.
Why are some people able to use their bodies effectively and convincingly in a social context by moving and communicating, while others are stressed, missing important parts of both verbal and nonverbal interaction?
Why do some of us have difficulties with body organization in relationship to space especially when trying hard to pay attention to what is being said in a conversation?
Why do some of us have an ability to hear the nuances when learning a foreign language, while others struggle to pronounce even the most simple words and need so much more work to achieve progress?
An auditory “tune-up”
The Tomatis approach aims at heightening the client's engagement abilities. It provides an auditory "tune up" exercising the muscles of the middle ear. The programs integrate music into a unique format that link the five components of the Chinese verb "to listen" - ears, heart, self and undivided attention. Better listening means enhanced voice production, more fluid speech and better quality of life.
When your clients are speaking, how in-tune are you with what they have to say? Are you hearing or are you listening? It’s usually the listeners who are successful because they show an understanding for their customers needs.
Being an active listener allows you to ask the right questions. Simply hearing results in improper questions at improper times. Listening will put others at ease and allow you to be effective.
Business people, teachers, students, parents, in order to be more effective, need to ask “Am I just hearing or am I listening to what they have to say?” Most of us have been gifted with the ability to hear, but few of us have taken hearing and refined it into the art of listening. We tend to be defensive when we hear. We are expecting people to say things that fit into our categories so we’re really not as open to hearing what they’re saying as we could be.
Listening Training deals with our ears (our “receptors”). It helps them function as they should and to their maximum potential.
Do you think there is a difference between hearing and listening? You are right, there is! Hearing is simply the act of perceiving sound by the ear. If you are not hearing-impaired, hearing simply happens. Listening, however, is something you consciously choose to do. Listening requires concentration so that your brain processes meaning from words and sentences. Listening leads to learning. Just about everybody hears. But only so many people listen.
Auditory Problems
In adults, hearing vs. listening are sometimes related to auditory problems. These problems may manifest as difficulty retaining auditory information, poor job performance, poor attentiveness, sensitivity to sound, or speech/language and voice concerns. In children, auditory problems may be identified by speech and language problems, sensitivity to sounds, poor attention, learning or reading disabilities, difficulty remembering or following directions, difficulty in speech production or expressing oneself, difficulty with listening comprehension as well as reading comprehension, difficulty with social interactions, or auditory self-stimulation such as constant humming or self-talk.
Auditory stimulation programs, often referred to as "listening programs", have seen positive results for decades. “Solisten” is a new and advanced device that delivers superb auditory stimulation and delivers significant results for a broad variety of problems, especially when integrated with other therapies. It delivers the “Tomatis Effect” based on three laws: The voice only contains what the ear can hear; if hearing is modified, the voice is immediately and unconsciously modified; it is possible to achieve long-lasting phonation when auditory stimulation is maintained over a certain time.
Relational Noise
Roy Williams shares the following story in an interesting little book called Does Your Ad Dog Bite?. It offers a nice example of the challenge inherent in listening rather than merely hearing.
The average American cannot say “no.” This is why he or she is average. The temptation which defeats the average American is a thing called “Overchoice”, a deceiver which whispers, “You don’t have to choose. You can have it all.” “Overchoice” creates a world of too many options. One of my senior associates,
Jim Anderson will graphically illustrate “Overchoice” by showing you five or six ping pong balls. He will ask you to catch each of these balls as he gently tosses them to you.
Everyone catches the first ball easily. It is only when Jim tosses the rest of the balls together that people come up empty-handed. Instinctively attempting to catch all the balls, the average person will frantically flail the air and send ping-pong balls careening around the room. The only person that will catch a ball is that rare person who will focus on a single ball.
As Williams observes, when we have too much relational noise, we lose focus and “drop the ball.” We simply cannot attend in much detail to a particular voice, a particular person, a particular heart. “Overchoice”, says Williams, keeps us (and our relationships) average because it prevents us from focusing for very long on any one thing.
American culture conditions us to be “fast.” There are deadlines that need to be met, specific times people need to arrive for work and recreation, and multi-tasking seems to be the only way to accomplish everything in a 24-hour (minus sleeping hours) period. Hence the phrase, “there is never enough time in a day.” It’s more like, “people are unrealistically expected to do too much in a day.”
Focus
Focus is absolutely essential to doing things well, whether it’s building a model boat or building a relationship. In fact, there can be no real listening (to one another or to ourselves, for that matter) apart from focus. We can improve our relationships and our productivity if we consider what it means to really listen to the voices in our lives rather than simply trying to catch as much of the noise around us as we can.
Why do some children or adults become tired so much sooner than others when performing the same activity? Why do others remain energetic and ready to move on without needing so much recovery time?
Why can some people engage in multiple tasks or follow verbal directions at the same time while others spend inordinate amounts of energy to focus on one single task, thought or person?
Listening: a complex process
Dr. Alfred Tomatis developed a new and comprehensive understanding of the listening function and its effect on social, cognitive, emotional and motor learning in children and adults. He showed how our ability to listen affects our lives.
The French Ear, Nose and Throat specialist defined listening as separate from hearing. Listening is a complex process that is active and voluntary. He developed techniques and technologies to educate and strengthen our ability to listen, commonly referred to as the “Tomatis Method”.
The ear is much more than an organ of hearing. It affects functions including energizing and regulating the brain’s state of alertness and attention; coordinating posture and movement; and connecting our intentions and thoughts with our physical and verbal transactions upon our environment. It is physiologically involved in acquiring language and controlling the voice.
Dr. Tomatis discovered that our listening abilities affect our psychological development and our expression and communication capabilities. He recognized the strong impact of neuro-psychological aspects of good and poor listening skills for learning and personality development, and stressed that internal motivational aspects are equally important when learning to listen efficiently. He emphasized the interactive relationship between a well-developed vertical posture and good listening and communication skills. The vestibule controls balance, coordination, muscle tone and eye muscles. The cochlea analyzes sounds and affects sensory integration.
The vestibule and the cochlea work in harmony to relay sensory information to the brain. Tomatis compared the ear to a dynamo “which transforms the stimulations it receives into neurological energy intended to feed the brain." High frequencies charge the brain, low frequency sounds, by activating the vestibular canals, make our bodies move and drain energy. People whose brains are not sufficiently “charged” are handicapped in a fast moving, multitasking environment like our society.
Why are some people able to use their bodies effectively and convincingly in a social context by moving and communicating, while others are stressed, missing important parts of both verbal and nonverbal interaction?
Why do some of us have difficulties with body organization in relationship to space especially when trying hard to pay attention to what is being said in a conversation?
Why do some of us have an ability to hear the nuances when learning a foreign language, while others struggle to pronounce even the most simple words and need so much more work to achieve progress?
An auditory “tune-up”
The Tomatis approach aims at heightening the client's engagement abilities. It provides an auditory "tune up" exercising the muscles of the middle ear. The programs integrate music into a unique format that link the five components of the Chinese verb "to listen" - ears, heart, self and undivided attention. Better listening means enhanced voice production, more fluid speech and better quality of life.
When your clients are speaking, how in-tune are you with what they have to say? Are you hearing or are you listening? It’s usually the listeners who are successful because they show an understanding for their customers needs.
Being an active listener allows you to ask the right questions. Simply hearing results in improper questions at improper times. Listening will put others at ease and allow you to be effective.
Business people, teachers, students, parents, in order to be more effective, need to ask “Am I just hearing or am I listening to what they have to say?” Most of us have been gifted with the ability to hear, but few of us have taken hearing and refined it into the art of listening. We tend to be defensive when we hear. We are expecting people to say things that fit into our categories so we’re really not as open to hearing what they’re saying as we could be.
Listening Training deals with our ears (our “receptors”). It helps them function as they should and to their maximum potential.
The Ear Brain Connection
So The question becomes... how can we overcome auditory processing challenges - moving from a "disorganized" to an "organized" system.
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.
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.
CAN WE CHANGE THE FUNCTIONALITY OF THE BRIAN?
Yes, the ability for the brain to change is known as neuroplasticity (also called brain plasticity, or brain malleability). It is the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. For example if one hemisphere of the brain is damaged, the intact hemisphere may take over some of its functions. The brain compensates for damage in effect by reorganizing and forming new connections between intact neurons. In order to reconnect the neurons need to be stimulated through activity. The same is true for parts of the brain compensating for injury or disease.
WHY COMBINE MOVEMENT, LISTENING AND VISUAL STIMULATION?
The 3 systems are vital for our ability to learn, pay attention, process information and coordinate movement. As these 3 systems are so interrelated,, "exercising" them simultaneously is a holistic approach which requires the brain to become better at integrating multi-sensory information. We are essentially retraining the brain to become more efficient, effective and in the process strengthening neural connections to improve performance.
WHY IS REPETITION AND ACTIVITIES IMPORTANT IN THIS PROGRAMME?
As newborns we gradually progressed from involuntary reflexive movements to more voluntary coordinated movements which, as we repeated them, became automatic. Research has shown that the cerebellum plays an important role in this "automation" process and when it is not doing its job well we have difficulty building patterns for further development in learning and coordination.
Yes, the ability for the brain to change is known as neuroplasticity (also called brain plasticity, or brain malleability). It is the brain's ability to reorganize itself by forming new neural connections throughout life. For example if one hemisphere of the brain is damaged, the intact hemisphere may take over some of its functions. The brain compensates for damage in effect by reorganizing and forming new connections between intact neurons. In order to reconnect the neurons need to be stimulated through activity. The same is true for parts of the brain compensating for injury or disease.
WHY COMBINE MOVEMENT, LISTENING AND VISUAL STIMULATION?
The 3 systems are vital for our ability to learn, pay attention, process information and coordinate movement. As these 3 systems are so interrelated,, "exercising" them simultaneously is a holistic approach which requires the brain to become better at integrating multi-sensory information. We are essentially retraining the brain to become more efficient, effective and in the process strengthening neural connections to improve performance.
WHY IS REPETITION AND ACTIVITIES IMPORTANT IN THIS PROGRAMME?
As newborns we gradually progressed from involuntary reflexive movements to more voluntary coordinated movements which, as we repeated them, became automatic. Research has shown that the cerebellum plays an important role in this "automation" process and when it is not doing its job well we have difficulty building patterns for further development in learning and coordination.
CEREBELLUM
The cerebellum is a region of the brain that plays an important role in motor control. It is located just above the brain stem and toward the back of the brain. It is relatively well protected from trauma compared to the frontal and temporal lobes and brain stem. It is also involved in some cognitive functions such as attention and language, and probably in some emotional functions such as regulating fear and pleasure responses. Its movement-related functions are the most clearly understood, however. The cerebellum does not initiate movement, but it contributes to coordination, precision, and accurate timing. It receives input from sensory systems and from other parts of the brain and spinal cord, and integrates these inputs to fine tune motor activity. Because of this fine-tuning function, damage to the cerebellum does not cause paralysis, but instead produces disorders in fine movement, equilibrium, posture, and motor learning.
Cerebellum injury results in movements that are slow and uncoordinated. Individuals with cerebella lesions tend to sway and stagger when walking. Damage to the cerebellum can lead to:
1. Loss of coordination of motor movement (asynergia)
2. The inability to judge distance and when to stop (dysmetria)
3.The inability to perform rapid alternating movement
(adiadochokinesia)
4. Movement tremors (intention tremor)
5. Staggering, wide based walking (ataxic gait)
6. Tendency toward falling
7. Weak muscles (hypotonia)
8. Slurred speech (ataxic dysarthria)
9. Abnormal eye movements (nystagmus).
Our Auditory Processing Awakening Programme stimulates cerebella activity to strengthen neural connections and in the process, improve our ability to make skills such as reading, writing, spelling etc automatic.
Cerebellum injury results in movements that are slow and uncoordinated. Individuals with cerebella lesions tend to sway and stagger when walking. Damage to the cerebellum can lead to:
1. Loss of coordination of motor movement (asynergia)
2. The inability to judge distance and when to stop (dysmetria)
3.The inability to perform rapid alternating movement
(adiadochokinesia)
4. Movement tremors (intention tremor)
5. Staggering, wide based walking (ataxic gait)
6. Tendency toward falling
7. Weak muscles (hypotonia)
8. Slurred speech (ataxic dysarthria)
9. Abnormal eye movements (nystagmus).
Our Auditory Processing Awakening Programme stimulates cerebella activity to strengthen neural connections and in the process, improve our ability to make skills such as reading, writing, spelling etc automatic.
THE VESTIBULAR SYSTEM
The vestibular system, which contributes to balance in most mammals and to the sense of spatial orientation, is the sensory system that provides the leading contribution about movement and sense of balance. Together with the cochlea, a part of the auditory system, it constitutes the labyrinth of the inner ear in most mammals, situated in the vestibulum in the inner ear. As our movements consist of rotations and translations, the vestibular system comprises two components: the semicircular canal system, which indicate rotational movements; and the otoliths, which indicate linear accelerations. The vestibular system sends signals primarily to the neural structures that control our eye movements, and to the muscles that keep us upright. The projections to the former provide the anatomical basis of the vestibulo-ocular reflex, which is required for clear vision; and the projections to the muscles that control our posture are necessary to keep us upright.
The 3 Main Functions:
Balance: as the primary organ of equilibrium, it plays a major role in the subjective sensation of motion and spatial orientation.
Posture: vestibular input to areas of the nervous system elicit adjustments of muscle activity and body posture.
Eye Movements: vestibular input to the nervous system helps stabilize the eyes during head movements.
Given these 3 functions, one can see how important the vestibular system is to our sense of balance, posture and muscle development and the eye tracking ability required for learning.
The 3 Main Functions:
Balance: as the primary organ of equilibrium, it plays a major role in the subjective sensation of motion and spatial orientation.
Posture: vestibular input to areas of the nervous system elicit adjustments of muscle activity and body posture.
Eye Movements: vestibular input to the nervous system helps stabilize the eyes during head movements.
Given these 3 functions, one can see how important the vestibular system is to our sense of balance, posture and muscle development and the eye tracking ability required for learning.