Superscript

Our Journey

by Holly Blowers BSMA AD

Everything was happening differently than I expected after Hope was born. I was so elated with finally having a little girl that I almost missed it. I studied a double major at Liberty University in Recreational Administration and Education so I was familiar with child development. I had been a foster parent, youth worker, group home leader, and a child care provider/supervisor and now I was finally a mother. But somehow it was obvious that this a beautiful gift from God, was going to have some challenges. As soon as she became interactive, I noticed (fairly quickly) that music relaxed and inspired her. She was always more playful and creative when music was being played. She listened to reggae like from Dragon Tales, Children’s music, Beach Boys, classical and just about anything that was cheerful and upbeat. Her first favorite music CD, Mozart Effect for Children-Relax, Day Dream and Draw,
was ironically produced the year she was born... (available below​)Hope's journey to being able to write a book on art and music and becoming a graphic artist was not an easy one. We were so fortunate to have the tools to help her develop beyond what we ever expected.

Hope is very passionate about her desire to help create a world in which the arts are universally accessible. We don't want anyone to miss out on the opportunity to create art while listening to therapeutic music., because it has made such an impact on her life.

At Age 3 1/2- Hope was diagnosed with Autism NOS-with Auditory processing disorder-Sensory processing Disorder-Visual processing deficits- low fine motor strength and control-Occupational therapy became a must.

​That is when we met with Dr, Ron Minson (Integrated Learning Systems or iLs in Denver) and learned about Advanced Brain Technologies music and The Listening Program (TLP).  

There are so many skills that Hope acquired at a much quicker rate when she was on the The Listening Program. I could do the program with her at home with her while she was doing an art project. She loved her listening time every day.

 Advanced Brain Technologies also had a big collection of music (Sound Health Series, Music for Babies, Music for the Mind, and Healing at the Speed of Sound)that slipped right into her moods and life. Her favorite CD to listen to became the one that Advanced Brain Technologies had customized for people with sensory integration issues. 

It not only helped her be more playful and creative in order to connect with the world and people around her, it helped her coordination and improved her cognitive skills. Because of the high percentage of visual skills stemming from the auditory system, some of the visual system started to create stronger neuro-pathways as well...

Hope is now 19, and despite all the skills we had to work really hard for, she is preparing to have a career with Advanced Brain Technology. She was one of the early participants of The Listening Program and just loved all their music and programs as they were developed. We all believe that it is the program that changed everything for her. Alexander Doman, the owner and CEO of Advanced Brain Technology, asked her to provide artistic input to tell what TLP did for her. She decided to use a bridge, because TLP connected her to the ability to change her life and her destiny.

Their Sleep Program was marketed with a bridge at night.
​
In September 2016- We learned that she did very well when she tested for military service in Job Corp. She became an Alpha candidate for all branches of military. Her high scores in technology careers allows her to her branch and and have more choices for training with them.

​For her complete story arrow down!

When you order from our Amazon Store links, we often receive a commission which helps our site remain ad free.
Thank you for supporting our mission.
Button 1 Button 2
Superscript

Our Favorite Affiliations,
Products & Webpages

Alex Doman- our amazing friend, Hope's Hero, founder and CEO of Advanced Brain Technologies, and the bestselling co-author of Healing at the Speed of Sound®
Don Campbell-Author of Mozart Effect
The Listening Program
Our Favorite Therapeutic Music and Products
Communicative Resources 
For Autism Spectrum disorders
​Assistive Technology for those with visual or cognitive disabilities
iLs- Denver Co
Training courses For Activities
Training for Healthcare and activities
Resources for Australia
Great Occupational Therapy in Melbourne, FL
Organization for Art and Disabilities FL
Community For Adults with Special Needs FL
Therapy Works-How does your engine run?
Carol Kranowitz-author The Out of Sync Child
Cathy Malchiodi-Art Therapy Books
Written Resources for Creative Therapy
Lexia Reading Software http://www.lexialearning.com/products
Forest Schools at Cumming Nature Center Naples, New York
Parenting with Love and Logic Golden, CO
Rhythms of Play-Nature Play Great resources and best nature craft ideas
Mother Natured Family Resources for Nature Play
Playful Parenting and Developing Creativity and Imagination

My Background and Credentials-

​I was raised in a small town in New York. I always wanted to work with special needs children like our neighbor did in Rochester, New York. As I graduated from Liberty University in 1982, I immediately began working in a group home and teaching in a classroom for emotional disturbed children. I taught for many years in special needs classrooms, directed day care programs, directed senior programs/activities and worked with underprivileged and disabled children most of my adult life.

During the course of finishing my master’s degree, I scheduled an experimental jaw surgery that left me with neurological damage equivalent to a head injury. I had to relearn how to learn. My cognitive rehabilitation was so intriguing to me that it became the focus of all my research projects for my degree. My struggle to regain my skills or use technology to accommodate my learning motivated me to create Incredible Horizons website. We featured most of the products that I used to regain my almost normal life and to finish my degree: ranking 89th in a class of almost eleven hundred. My head injury left me dyslexic, but not unable to learn and inspire others to push through their fears and challenges. The experience is now an asset to me. One never fully understands other peoples struggles without experiencing them.
​
ACHIEVEMENTS
* My ability to ensure program excellence, program evaluations, and a consistent quality of administration for activity programming, communications, and operational systems has grown through out my years of professional experience.

* I double majored in Recreational Administration and Education at Liberty University. I also have a Masters Degree in counseling and hold several certificates in specialized training in conquering learning, memory, speech and listening difficulties. I have recently completed my requirements to be an Activities Director in healthcare facilities.

^ I earned Denver Posts Best Children’s Programs Award 3 consecutive years while being the Program Director at Southwest YMCA.

* I have 16+years of direct care experiences with special populations- 9+ yrs in residential care/nursing home facilities, 7+ years experience as an Activities/Program coordinator with the elderly and children with varying levels of abilities.

*I have taught in the special needs community in inclusive environments for 11 + years. I also was a foster parent for special needs children for 9 more years.

* I have enjoyed being featured guest on Highway 2 Health radio show and have wrote numerous articles and briefs on mind care/or special needs children’s services and tools for a local newspaper.

* My personal qualities combined with my diverse experience has given me many opportunities for community service. I never miss out on helping to plan a special event for local charities. I have always enjoyed volunteering in Special Olympic's programs, nursing homes, soup kitchens, food banks, children's homes and thrift stores. I want to share my passion and have a strong desire to stay in touch with those who need encouragement and tools to overcome their challenges.

* In 2001 I became the author and creator of
www.IncredibleHorizons.com  which was an informational and retail website for learning and cognitive/memory difficulties. ​It was a massive site used and recommended by many providers and doctors for parents and their staff that interact with children with cognitive, learning and speech difficulties. My goal was to help them learn about their diagnosis and its effect on daily life and provide options for tools that could revitalize their brains healing and adaptive abilities presented in an easy to understand format.

* I co -founded a private school for special needs children in 2005. I was very proud to be the administrator of this unique academy, because I got to evaluate each student’s abilities/needs upon arrival and set and individualized plan for educational, therapeutic and medical services meant to enhance each student’s quality of life. My dedication and vision to provide therapeutic services during the school day, increased the amount of customized interventions received by each of our clients/students. By increasing the amount of interventions that each of our clients/students could attend we propelled them into astonishing progress and success in the classroom and outside the school environment. We inspired our staff to open 3 new schools as we closed due to the death of my co-founder. However, our message and philosophy still lives in the schools that they opened.

* I have recently completed classes in A-Z Activities and Alzheimer’s Boot camp. recently completed my Activities Director class for healthcare facilities.

* I am on a new venture to provide families and programs for the special needs community with helpful ideas and information in a printed format. I have started on a series of books to show how therapeutic music programs coupled with art that can make a huge difference in the outcome of one's life by increasing their joy and desire to connect with the rest the world and the people around them.


Hope's Journey to Success

Hope was spinning with energy and curiosity at a very young age. She was a tenacious toddler that loved to be creative and explore her world.

Therapeutic music settled her mind and body to the point that she almost craved artistic uses of common things. We finger painted and played in regular spreadable items from the kitchen-like baby food of different colors, rice cereal, whipped cream, pudding, yogurt, applesauce, frosting, Jello (not fully set or made with extra water), ice cream or even snow etc. Even dry ingredients like oatmeal, rice, flour etc on a cookie tray or plate became entertaining.

If I was in the kitchen she was creating there. Whatever I was using became exploratory art for her. Play dough in our house was sugar cookie dough, bread dough or pie dough. We flavored and colored just about anything with Jello, Kool-aide or food coloring if she wanted color or flavor. She also loved a very simple peanut butter play dough recipe that I picked up from working at the YMCA. It was 1 cup of flour, 1 cup of peanut butter- I don’t think I will ever forget that one because we used it so much. Most of her early crafts were things that Hope and I thought up spontaneously as we put household items together. Everything in her world seemed to become a creative opportunity. Sometimes I just had to go where she was emotionally that day, she was mostly in a world of her own. On her better days, I had her choose from 2-3 activities that I had prepped. Some days she was a sensory seeker and other a sensory avoider. She seldom wore more that a diaper so she could get messy anytime. She enjoyed that. Like one day she was tearing up paper into little pieces and having a ball. I saw some clear contact paper on the shelf and…​ WA LA we had a project. She made her first collage.

Another morning she was exploring what things she could paint and discovering that paint did not stick to everything. She glued them to a piece of paper so she wouldn't forget what object she could paint for future projects. To extend her interest. I happened to remember buying some extra Easter egg coloring kits so we had another artistic process to test . We played for awhile just putting things in the dye to see if the color actually dyed the items or rolled off them. The most interesting one was seashells- they took to a lot of egg coloring techniques just like the eggs did. As expected the red came out the brightest and the others looked mostly pastel colored. The other dying methods worked the same as eggs.

I always made Hope feel like she was exploring or discovering something and she would engage easily. Hope needed to have her hands busy most of the time so it was quick, easy to let her use shaped sponges to paint and she ended up with a project to be proud of. Another early art supply was HUGE stencils – The really big ones....like she could peek through the holes and we could see most of her face.

We used the cutout to paint around and the outer stencil to give her projects shape. The Wilton 101 cookie cutters were not only used for play-dough tools: she dipped them in paint on a plate and used them as a stamp too.

At Age 3 1/2- Hope was diagnosed with PDD NOS-with Auditory processing disorder-Sensory processing Disorder-Visual processing deficits- low fine motor strength and control- Occupational therapy became a must.  I appreciated their suggestions and they introduced me to How does your engine run? The program helped me understand her so much better. Music inspired artwork became a tool to help her develop appropriate sensory integration. Toys were purchased specifically for the skills she needed. Therapeutic music was researched to aide in Auditory Processing Deficits and sensory processing. That is when we met with Dr, Ron Minson and learned about Advanced Brain Technologies music and The Listening Program (TLP). There are so many skills that Hope acquired at a much quicker rate when she was on the The Listening Program. I could do the program with her at home with her while she was doing an art project. She loved her listening time every day. Advanced Brain Technologies also had a big collection of music that slipped right into her moods and life. Her favorite CD to listen to became the one that Advanced Brain Technologies had customized for people with sensory integration issues. It not only helped her be more playful and creative in order to connect with the world and people around her, it helped her coordination and improved her cognitive skills. Because of the high percentage of visual skills stemming from the auditory system, some of the visual system started to create stronger neuropathways as well. To me both the special needs child and the “normal” child could benefit from The Listening Program because of its many benefits. I cannot imagine what our lives would be like without ABT music and The Listening Program.

At 4 years old she had her first eye exam. Found out that her eyes would never work together and so reading and writing would be difficult to impossible. She got special glasses to help her see better but still struggled because they just magnified.

The summer before Hope went you kindergarten was one of the most stressful summers of my life. I was so concerned that they wouldn’t understand her or know how to help her learn. I was afraid she wasn’t ready for the discipline of a classroom. Her sensory and social skills were still behind so I was afraid she would be labeled disruptive. Somehow we made it through many struggles during elementary school.

Never in a million years would I have believed that the child that I had then, would conquer all that she has with the power of The Listening Program(TLP). No one would have ever thought that by the time that she entered high school that she would have earned a scholarship for half of her college tuition or have a modeling contract. To me it’s a no brainer, TLP is worth the try. We became an authorized provider in 2003 and started a website with research on various special needs that doctors were not even prepared for. It became my final project for my master’s degree.

Hope is now 19, and despite all the skills we had to work really hard for, she is preparing to have a career with Advanced Brain Technology. She was one of the early participants of The Listening Program and just loved all their music and programs as they were developed. We all believe that it is the program that changed everything for her. When Alexander Doman, the owner and CEO of Advanced Brain Technology, asked her to provide artistic input to tell what TLP did for her, what she would use. She decided to use a bridge, because TLP connected her to the ability to change her life and her destiny. Their Sleep Program was marketed with a bridge at night.

Hope's journey to writing a book on art and music and becoming a graphic artist was not an easy one. We were so fortunate to have the tools to help her develop beyond what we ever expected. Hope is very passionate about her desire to help create a world in which the arts are universally accessible. We don't want anyone to miss out on the opportunity to create art while listening to therapeutic music., because it has made such an impact on her.

Button 1 Button 2