Tom’s history is a familiar one to many families with a schizophrenic child. Heidi’s account of her son’s childhood helps us to understand how assaults on the ear can have a cumulative effect on a person. Tom’s audiogram shows bilateral distortions and frequent reversals of which ear is the more sensitive ear at ascending frequencies. Trying to pay attention with both ears instead of with his right ear has weakened Tom’s left-brain dominance.

Heidi and her husband Rob live in a small town in Illinois. Rob, who works from his home office, also works outside the home three days a week.  Since he has his own business, also, he works evenings and weekends in addition to days.  Heidi has found the treatment and advice of a chiropractor regarding nutrition and exercise somewhat helpful for their son, Tom, who is 29. Heidi has received the following resources in addition to email communication: Hemispheric Integration and the Ears, Chart of the Range of States of Consciousness, and Awakening Normal. She keeps meticulous notes on Tom, who started short intervals of Focused Listening in mid-April 2018. His hearing is so sensitive that he started at a quarter of the recommended listening per day and is building up to longer listening sessions.

During his first year, Tom had seven ear infections. By the time he was two, his slight delays in walking and his balance problems were evident. At two years of age, he was diagnosed with sensory integration disorder. He did occupational therapy twice a week from age two-and-a-half until kindergarten for gravitational insecurity and tactile defensiveness. He also had auditory processing problems. Heidi noticed early that he often asked her to repeat what she said to him.  She learned to ask him, “What did I say?” when he wanted her to repeat something and that by saying aloud what he had heard, he was able to process and do what was asked or to respond to the question.

Tom is now doing Focused Listening for about 1 hour per day, which is half the target listening time. He has been prescribed other medications in the past. Currently he is taking daily: Ziprasidone HCL 80 mg (Geodon) 2x; Paliperidone ER (Invega) 9 mg; Propranolol ER 60 mg (Inderal) 2x; Duloxetine HCL DR 30 mg (Cymbalta) 2x; Clonazepam .5 mg (Klonopin); and Alprazolam .5 mg (Xanax) “as needed.” Tom’s chiropractor recommended dietary changes and exercises “for cerebral integration” and suggested Tom could do with less medication. Heidi thinks the gluten-free and sugar-free diet made a difference in Tom’s behavior. Tom found the exercises too tiring but did a less strenuous exercise for a while, which might have helped him to become more alert in the mornings, which is neurologically sound because the movement of body muscles feeds back to the stapedius and tensor tympanum muscles in the middle ear.

Tom has always been the one in the family who cuts the lawn and continues to do so. During the school year when his mother was working three evenings a week, Tom created a dinner menu for himself and would shop for food he wanted that wasn’t already in the house.  He and his father share the cooking as they have different tastes.

Tom is applying for full-time jobs and thinks he can handle them. Both his counselor and his mother have talked to him about smaller steps–volunteer or part-time work. Today’s conversation was about trying to maintain a schedule of staying awake from 9 to 5 so it’s not a shock to his system when he does get a job.

Heidi recently decided to try Focused Listening herself to see if she can reduce anxiety and increase energy and motivation.  She wonders if her lack of energy is a tendency to depression. Heidi says, “I’m really a fairly calm person.  Most people would describe me as very calm even in trying circumstances.”