How The Listening
Therapy successfully treats:
DYSLEXIA and LEARNING PROBLEMS
"Tell me how you speak, read and write and
I will tell you how you listen."
Over the past forty years, Dr. Alfred Tomatis has
developed an approach which has been successfully treating children
with Dyslexia and learning problems. He discovered that dyslexia
stems from impaired listening. He also showed that dyslexia can be
treated by restoring the listening abilities.
Dr. Tomatis has found that the ear plays a fundamental
role in language development. Scientific evidence confirms that children
already hear when still in the womb.
After birth, their language develops primarily
through hearing the language spoken by their parents. Through imitation
and play, they learn the frequencies of the mother tongue. Only a
good integration of the spoken language will make it possible to
develop good writing and reading skills. A good ear is therefore
the key element for mastering the language. But as one may look without
seeing, one may hear without listening. Listening requires the desire
to focus on sounds. Dr. Tomatis identifies this lack of desire as
a major cause of learning disabilities. Poor listening makes poor
learning.
To listen well, the ear must be able to analyse
the sounds correctly. Natural sounds are very complex and are a mixture
of high and low frequencies. The ear must be able to distinguish
them properly. Dyslexic children are unable to do so. Thus they often
have a hesitant and monotonous speech, with confusion or reversal
of letters. The same distortions will occur in their spelling and
reading. Indeed reading and writing require that we associate a graphic
sign with a sound in a single time frame. This becomes terribly difficult
or even impossible when sounds are not clearly discriminated.
Dr. Tomatis also discovered that as we have a dominant
hand, a dominant eye etc... we have a dominant ear. He showed that
the right ear must be the leading ear to listen well. Indeed the
transmission of the sound to the language centre in the left brain
is much shorter from the right ear.
Why do these listening distortions occur? Dr. Tomatis
says that "all infants coming into the world have the potential
to listen well". But there are a large variety of reasons that
would alter our listening; history of ear infections, an early separation
from the mother, a move, an accident or any emotional distress in
early life. As a result the child closes off from the world of listening
and from the world of communication. The child ends up perceiving
the world through its own filter or distortions, he moves in a "dyslexified
world" cut off from his family, peers, the school system...
Dyslexia is not limited to a learning difficulty but often embraces
a personal development impairment.
About the treatment
Tomatis training starts with a Listening Test that
measures the frequency responses, the ability to discriminate the
sounds and the ear-dominance. A thorough interview with the parents
completes the assessment. Then a programme and a number of sessions
is devised to meet the individuals needs.
The sessions consist of a stimulation of the ears
via the Electronic Listening Device* in order to correct the listening
distortions. A minimum treatment is a period of 13 days followed
by 7 days with a 3 - 5 week break. A further 7 days might be required
depending on the case and the progress. Parents and teachers usually
report great changes in communication and behaviour shortly after
the first session. They also note an increase in the motivation to
learn with an improvement in reading, writing , concentration etc...
Further listening tests confirm the changes.
This treatment offers a person suffering from dyslexia
a real chance to fully use their own potential and creativity. Traditional
methods of education will work when good listening skills are well
developed. The Tomatis Method provides this ability for those who
need it.
* The Electronic Listening Device. A set of headphones.
a microphone and a system of electronic "gates"
which filter sounds to specific frequencies. Altogether a sort of
working model of the real ear. The device trains the ears to function
without distortion until one’s own can do the job themselves
unaided.
Case Studies: Bryan's
Story or Jack's
Story
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