Hi- I wanted to give you all the address of the woman I worked with at Somatron in case you have grant money that you want to use to purchase any Somatron product. Her name is Kim and her email address is kim@somatron.com
Let me know if I can be of assistance too!
MommaNiki
Hi everyone! I just wanted to share my son, Eric's, new therapy. We just received the Somatron Music Mattress that we ordered for him. It is a little more than a chunk of change, but I saw it in a couple of catalogs and thought it looked like a good idea. I showed the catalogs to Eric and that mattress was the only thing he picked out as something he wanted with his grant money. I worked a lot with the actual company who makes them and I had great results. If you are interested in checking it out you can go to:
http://www.somatron.com/hprod/somaseat/mattress.html
Basically- it is a mattress with speakers in it so that the person lying on it can feel the vibroacoustic feedback put out by a stereo you hook it up to. We got the classical CD set to go with it. Eric's first night on it was last night and let me tell you- he loved it. When the 4 cds had been played, the music would stop. Eric would start stirring and talking in his sleep. As soon as I got the music started again- he would be still and silent. If your autistic child is in tune with music and is as musically motivated as mine, you and your child will LOVE it too. I am not paid to say any of this- I just wanted to share because I have had such an awesome experience with it all around.
A somatron is awesome! Our OT came up with an inexpensive version using a bean shaped (or TV watching type) bean bag. Then wired small outdoor speakers into it and connected it the the stereo. The whole thing cost about .00 and he has made several for the parents in our program. if you can afford the real one awesome....but this is an option for those who can't.