iLS Focus System | Listening Activities

Carol:
In the beginning, your main focus is just to give your child access to the headset on their head. That's where the major changes are going to happen.

Lara:
Some great examples of what to do in listening, we have some families who the morning is better for them. Their children wake up a couple hours before they have to go to school. They like to play in their room. They take their time making it to the breakfast table. That would be a fantastic way to get 30 minutes of listening in. When your child wakes up in the morning, they can play in their room. They can have the headphones in on while they're getting dressed, when they are preparing to go to school. This is a wonderful time to put the headset on.

Lara:
You may also have other children when they come home from school who like to go outside on the playground and play outdoors. I have another family who walked to school every day and it takes them 20 minutes to get to school and 20 minutes to get back. So they get 45 minutes of listening in every day on their way to and from school. Some great examples of activities to do in the beginning while listening include chores, riding your bike, walking the dog, playing on a playground, any kind of activity where movement is incorporated is exactly what therapy is today.

Carol:
Some of our friends have very unique applications of their activity. We have friends riding unicycles with it and they love to send us their videos. We also have friends who love to jump on the trampoline with their headset. Yes, we want you on the trampoline. We want you having fun. Some of our friends really like sensory bins where you get the nice big containers of plastic containers. You can put dried beans in them. Some friends like to submerse themselves while wearing the headset in there and those types of activities keep them engaged so they can get the listening in because there's nothing manually that anyone can do that can top what these programs are doing for the brain when they're on their head. So the goal is to get them listening and enjoy it.

Lara:
Absolutely. A good rule of thumb while listening, if you get an hour in is to make sure you're moving 20 minutes of the time. Or if you have a 30 minute session, about 10 minutes of the time.

Carol:
We can layer in more aggressive exercises once you are enjoying the process, because that's your priority in the beginning, is to enjoy it and have fun. I'd rather you shorten the listening time and have the headphones come off where everyone's still happy than try to push for a full hour and sacrifice the enjoyment piece. Remember in the beginning, it's just about enjoying the process.

Lara:
Absolutely. Because we know when we can get these headphones on your child's head, great things will happen.