The Tomatis Method and the Genesis of Listening

INTRODUCTION Over the last 40 years, Dr. Alfred A. Tomatis, a French physician and specialist in Otolaryngology, has been developing a method of auditory stimulation which assists and accelerates the development of listening skills, language and communication. The Method which bears Tomatis' name has been successfully applied in North America by special education teachers, psychologists and speech and language pathologists who have been trained and certified in the application of the Tomatis Method and continue to work in association with Dr. Tomatis. There are over 80 facilities worldwide, the majority in Europe, directed by certified specialists from the fields of music, education, psychology, medicine, speech and language therapy and occupational and motor therapy. In North America, the Method's growth has been spurred on by the activities of organizations and individuals-both parents and professionals-committed to seeing it made more widely available. There are currently nine professionally directed (private and non profit) clinics or centres operating in Canada (3), the United States (3) and Mexico (3). A special group version of the Tomatis Method, the Listening Training Program, has been applied in five Canadian school boards and two private schools to help children with listening-related learning and communication disorders. Tomatis coined the term "audio-psycho-phonology" (A.P.P.) to describe his innovative and multi disciplinary approach. He has developed a comprehensive theory to explain the results obtained with his method. THE METHOD AND ITS EFFECTS The Method itself is a sensory stimulation program in which the individual listens to electronically modified (filtered) sound through headsets. The content is either music, the mother's voice, or the individual's own voice. The sound is modified by a device called the Electronic Ear. By means of filters, amplifiers and a sophisticated gating mechanism the sound is reshaped and presented to the ear in rapidly alternating forms. This auditory stimulation has a number of well documented effects (see Gilmor, 1989; van Jaarsveld & du Plessis, 1989, in press; and Stutt, 1983 for reviews of the literature). 1. There is improvement in receptive (attention span, aural comprehension) and expressive (speech, voice and language) communication skills. This is accomplished according to Tomatis through the modified sound's effect on the middle ear's focussing response which is mediated largely by the action of the stirrup and hammer muscles. 2. There is improvement in concentration, alertness, mental energy and more highly developed cognitive skills. Tomatis attributes this to the energizing effect of high-frequency sound on the central nervous system. This "charging effect" derives from the very large proportion of sensory receptor cells of Corti (located on the basilar membrane of the cochlea) which are responsive to high-frequency sound. 3. There is improvement in the emotional well-being of the individual especially in cases where the source of the emotional block or trauma occurred in early life during the prenatal period, birth experience or first years of life. Increases in the individual's communicativeness are generally observed, "more expressive verbally," "says more but talks less," "more curious," "more open." These changes are effected through a simulation of the listening development process from the earliest stages of the ear's auditory functioning during the prenatal life. This sonic journey traces the stages of listening from the mid-point of the pregnancy when the higher frequencies of the mother's voice are perceived. The "sonic birth," a transition from a liquid acoustic environment to an aerian acoustic environment (as at birth) is also recreated. Then the prelinguistic stage of listening to and playing with sounds leads to the linguistic stage during which the integration of the sounds of language occurs. …