The Tomatis method is used to treat people experiencing auditory processing problems, dyslexia, attention deficit disorder, autism, and learning disorders. It may also improve their communication and social behavior by auditory stimulation, which can eliminate or reduce the severity of the disorder.
The method is based on the belief that the symptoms of these disorders are not caused by the disorder itself, but by a sensory regulation problem that begins in our most primordial sensory instrument, the inner ear.
The program begins with an initial assessment with a consultant to test present and potential hearing. The patient is also evaluated to ensure that auditory stimulation is the appropriate treatment. Then a program is custom made, but it follows a basic pattern.
The Electronic Ear is a tape recorder where sound is filtered and frequency can be adjusted. Initially, workouts consist of sessions of listening to very high frequencies that stimulate the pre-natal sounds and reproduce the stages of development from an audial point of view. This training makes it possible to switch ear dominance and reteach the listening process.
These passive exercises, which consist of listening to specific frequencies, are gradually combined with active exercises utilizing the voice to maintain the lessons learned.
