I ordered two of these and have been using them for about a month and a half now. I purchased them to do neurologic music therapy (NMT) and imitation exercises with our son. Our son receives NMT services at this time to support regulation, motor skills, and hopefully the long term development of his expressive language skills. Although we do spend a great deal of time working on encouraging the latter, for me, as his mom, I know he can still function effectively as an adult given his ability to communicate with his speech device. So I actually consider his overall ability to regulate to be the most important of the things we're working on right now when it comes to helping him function in the world outside of our house. But I spend copious amounts of time encouraging both, and this is one of the things we use. I purchased these specifically because they are more similar to the ones used at his clinic, and I thought the visual similarities would help him adjust to them.<br /><br />So these don't see heavy use, because we also have a Remo Lollipop drum that we purchased at the same time which he surprisingly prefers despite its different appearance. I think the reason there is the handle allows him to hold it easier and you can produce a quieter tone on it. For this, how we use it looks like this: I might have him in his swing, and I'm swinging him and singing "The Ants Go Marching..." as I march, and then we bang the drum on the "Boom, Boom, Boom" part. The swinging and the drumming simultaneously increases the impact to his vestibular system, which is one of his black holes of sensory seeking needs. And I will move the drum a bit each time so he has to track it with his eyes. Or I might have him imitate me hitting it while he's spinning on his chair, again for the same reason... that sort of thing. So we use these a couple of times each week, the Lollipop drum is the one he wants to use most days.<br /><br />Thus far we have no condition issues of any kind with them. I do think the sound is fine for what we are doing with them. The top can be cleaned easily enough, although it will stain. One of them already sports a baked Cheetos colored fingerprint stain. Doesn't just about everything in this house by now? ;) I got the 12" because I figured the surface area would be a good size for him to hit, but it wouldn't be too big for him to carry (he's 5), and that's working out well. So overall, we haven't had any problems, and they are working great for what we need it to. I can't say how they would hold up with longer durations of use. For that, I might be worried that the top vellum looking material might separate and crack come from the plastic, but that is only a hypothetical area these could potentially break down based on heavy use. At this point 1.5 months in, everything still looks great and sounds the way we need it to.
Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]