Sound is everywhere, it’s as much a part of our lives as the air we breathe and the food we eat. Yet, many people become stressed or uncomfortable with sounds in their own home, school, work, and public places, and aren’t even aware of it.The cause, NOISE!

Negative sound exposure has a scientifically proven impact on health, sleep, attention, learning, communication, listening, hearing, stress and more. A 2011 report from the World Health Organization and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre Burden of Disease From Environmental Noise states that “noise like this is second only to air pollution as an environmental cause of ill health.” There is no question noise is a major health concern, something my co-author Don Campbell and me wrote about extensively in our book Healing at the Speed of Sound®.  Each of us is impacted by noise, some more than others. But millions with autism spectrum disorders, sensory processing disorders and brain injury are not only impacted by noise, but often develop a negative emotional response to sound.

Dr. Jay Lucker, associate professor in the Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders at Howard University in Washington, DC recently co-authored an article with me for Autism Science Digest which explores sound sensitivities in a growing population of children and adults with autism that are known to commonly have hypersensitivities to sound. The article titled “Auditory Hypersensitivity and Autism Spectrum Disorders: An Emotional Response” is in the current issue 04, which is available at Barnes and Noble through July.

My company Advanced Brain Technologies today announced the launch of TLP Spectrum™; a new auditory program for at home use, to improve sound brain fitness and reduce sensory sensitivities in children and adults who are or who may become hypersensitive to sounds. This program is a gentle way to desensitize emotional reactions to sound.

TLP Spectrum consists of evidence-based instrumental music which contains proprietary sound technologies to exercise the brain, and filter out unwanted sounds, while keeping the listener relaxed during fifteen-minute listening sessions with headphones. The program is ideal for those most susceptible to sound sensitivity; including children and adults with autism spectrum disorders, sensory processing disorders, brain injury and developmental delays, as well as typically developing toddlers (my 2 year old son is on the program), preschoolers, and the elderly.

I’ll be presenting this article and introducing TLP Spectrum at the Autism One/ Generation Rescue Conference 2012 in Chicago next month. Hope to see you there!

Use it or lose it, we are all familiar with this adage. It is true for the body and true for the brain.

Without sufficient sensory stimulation a child’s brain does not develop as it should. Nor does an adult brain maintain full  functionality as a  result of negative plasticity. The auditory system thrives with the right input and suffers if deprived of sound or overstimulated by noise.

A new study by researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania shows that declines in hearing ability may accelerate gray mater atrophy in auditory areas of the brain and increase the listening effort necessary for older adults to successfully comprehend speech.

Hearing aids can be an effective intervention. Another approach to  consider is music listening therapy. This is  neuroauditory training to improve sound brain fitness in part by stimulating the frequency bands where the deficits exist with specially modified music.  There has been good success helping people with mild hearing loss through the use of The Listening Program®. In many cases listeners no longer require hearing aids, because they trained their brain to better understand what it hears (auditory processing).

Many audiologists will share that when patients with mild hearing loss wear hearing aids for a period of time that their auditory discrimination improves on tests without the hearing aids. This is due to the brain now being able to perceive the auditory signal through sound amplification. The increased signal is enough to improve brain processing. In my opinion, a course of The Listening Program should be considered prior to using hearing aids in cases of mild hearing loss, and definitely needs to be used along with hearing aids. This is something proactive that can be done to stimulate the brain so people can continue to enjoy the richness that exists within the sounds of our loved ones voices, music, and nature.

Read more about this study published in the Journal of Neuroscience here.

A couple days ago I posted an article Ouch That Hurts about an auditory condition called misophonia in which annoying sounds can cause major rage. This morning The Today Show did a segment on this topic that you can view here.

Most of the research into the cause of this and related disorders appears to be focused on auditory mechanisms.  However, Advanced Brain Technologies Scientific Advisory Board Member and audiologist Dr. Jay Lucker of Howard University has been researching strong behavioral reactions to sound in children and suggests it is the emotional reactions must be dealt with. This was his response to a question we posed on the Healing at the Speed of Sound Facebook page.

“I am in the process of revising a manuscript for publication on loud and annoying sounds in children. Findings revealed that this is NOT an auditory based problem in the overwhelming number of children seen in this study. The major problem is our negative emotional reactions to loud and annoying sounds. We must deal with the emotional reactions more so than the auditory based issues for most of our children with sound tolerance problems.”

Ouch! Do You Ever Find Sounds Annoying or Uncomfortable? What Are They? Post your response here.

Psycho What?

This is the typical response I receive when using the term psychoacoustics when giving a presentation or training professionals. At Advanced Brain Technologies we use this field of science combined with neuroscience and music effects research in our research and development of audio products which improve sound brain fitness.

The article Sound, the Way the Brain Prefers to Hear It was recently published in The New York Times. Reading it will give you a better understanding of the work we do, and the science that guides it. Knowing how the brain perceives and processes elements of sound; rhythm, frequency, timing, volume and space is the foundation. From there we design programs which improve sound brain fitness, training the brain to improve its perception and understanding of these sonic elements, so it can better understand what it hears.

This is an exciting and growing field, that is now gaining greater recognition, as we better understand how the brain prefers to experience sound.

Ever annoyed by sounds?

Each of us have sounds we like or dislike, just as we prefer certain foods over others. But some people experience pain with certain sounds, something called hyperacusis. Others dislike some sounds, a condition called misophonia, while others experience phonophobia, a fear of sounds.

These conditions can be difficult to diagnose and hard to treat, although some have found relief with The Listening Program. Interestingly each of these auditory perceptual issues can trigger the body’s physiological response to stress, “fight/flight”.  For years I suffered from hyperacusis (fortunately no longer) and can tell you it can be unbearable at times. These issues can be so debilitating, people who suffer from them may not leave their home in order to avoid the triggers.

Yesterday The New York Times published an interesting article “When a Chomp or a Slurp Is a Trigger for Outrage“. It delves into misophonia, and sheds some light on why sounds can trigger rage. If you read it please comment here. I am very interested in your reaction to this information.

Children listened to 30 minutes of music a day through a special audio system which provided the music through both auditory pathways, air and bone conduction. The outcomes are positive and have been presented at European conferences. We now await approval for a large scale clinical trial to confirm these results in a larger sample size.

Continence problems severely impact quality of life, self esteem, and have large costs associated with supporting these children as they enter school. Our protocol holds promise to help children with toilet training problems, reduce costs of services to them, and help them live a happier more fulfilling life.

Note that the program name in the article is incorrect. What is referenced as the Listening Project is supposed to be The Listening Program® developed by Advanced Brain Technologies in Ogden, Utah.

Read the full article

UPDATE: Thank you to the staff at the Liverpool Echo for making the correction to the program name!

I just came across this article in ScienceDaily and wanted to share it. Unfortunately I cannot elaborate in this post, but I am encouraged to see the research interest in exploring the role of the central auditory pathway in tinnitus.

Read the article here http://bit.ly/cJ8L0m

The middle ear is the gateway to a neural filtering system that helps us receive auditory information such as human speech and to simultaneously filter out unwanted sound or noise which can damage the delicate structures of the inner ear resulting in hearing loss, hyperacousis, stress, and a host of other problems. 

Many recognize the vital connection between the ear and body’s fight-flight response, which is physiologically linked from the middle ear to the vagal regulation system. The polyvagal theory of psychologist Stephen Porges provides a clear understanding of this mechanism. The Listening Program® with bone conduction technology is used in part as a training method to improve the function of this system.

Now a new in vivo study at Tufts University shows for the first time that there is a stress response system within the cochlea (inner ear) that mirrors the signaling pathways of the fight-flight response and protects against noise induced hearing loss. This is an exciting finding that further reveals what a marvel the auditory system is and the critical role it plays in our lives.

Read more about the Tufts study.

For the full article please visit ScienceDaily.

Some infants who are born with impaired hearing and who cannot benefit from hearing aids are likely to gain 90% normal hearing ability by undergoing a cochlear implantation procedure. Following the operation, however, the child — who never heard before — undergoes a long rehabilitation process before he or she can begin to speak.

In the present study, Dr. Dikla Kerem of the University of Haifa examined the particular effects that music therapy has on the potential development of toddlers (aged 2-3 years) who have undergone cochlear implantation, specifically in terms of improving spontaneous communication.

“Music comprises various elements that are also components of language and therefore as a non-verbal form of communication is suitable for communication with these children, when they are still unable to use language. Communicative interactions, especially those initiated by the toddlers, are critical in the development of normal communication, as they are prerequisites for developing and acquiring language,” explains Dr. Kerem. She adds that the toddlers undergoing rehabilitation are under much pressure from their surroundings — especially the parents — to begin talking, and sometimes this pressure makes them become introverted. As such, music therapy lends itself to strengthening these children’s nonverbal communication and thereby lessens the pressure on them for verbal exchange and response.[1]

Music can serve to open up the auditory receptivity of these children, lowering their defenses and providing an opportunity to gradually process and understand the components of sound that make up receptive and expressive language.  It is a way into a fragile system in need of gentle stimulation and support.

Read the full article.