SCHOOL DIFFICULTIES | appcoaching

"Paradoxically a pupil in difficulty is often a brilliant child". Alfred A. Tomatis

Audio-Psycho-Phonology is an innovative method is an innovative method that stimulates auditory attention and helps develop learning skills. Over the past decades, it has helped thousands of children around the world with special educational needs and more general learning difficulties, successfully integrate the mainstream education system.

The "Electronic Ear" device "Tomatis Effect” used during the Audio-Psycho-Phonology sessions, improves listening and sensory integration, by stimulating the ear via the bones and muscles of the middle ear, the cochlea, the vestibular system and the auditory nerve. The device re-educates the ear using filtered and non-filtered music by Mozart, Gregorian chants, and extracts from the "Little Prince" by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, read aloud.

Well-developed listening skills are essential for learning. In order to read and write correctly, the pupil needs to know how to decipher sounds, analyse them and reproduce them through an ear without any obstruction.

"Hearing well" does not mean, listening well for Alfred Tomatis "A child who cannot fix his attention, who accumulates language delays or who has behavioural problems, has suppressed or reduced his desire to listen. Therefore, he cannot express his thoughts, memorise correctly or control his language”.

Steps must be taken to identify learning difficulties as soon as possible to be able to adapt a solution.

The method can be used as a preventive approach at nursery school to avoid a difficult transition to primary school.

Between the ages of 3-6 years old, children will learn how to express themselves verbally and physically and use their “listening function” efficiently, especially at school. It is possible to detect early signs of language and psychomotor problems in children in this age range.

The method can be used as a support at elementary school to help in the transition to secondary school education.

Between the ages of 6-11 years old, children are usually checked for deficiencies in vision, hearing, psychomotor skills and learning deficits. However, the conventional hearing tests do not often detect a listening impairment.

This is the period when previously undetected problems come to light and need to be corrected without delay.

An optimisation approach in high school.

For adolescents the method is more specifically used for improving attention, concentration and memory. It also helps develop language expression, communication and foreign language learning, logic, understanding and analysis. It elicits better behaviour, helps students gain maturity and self-confidence to better manage and help the transition from childhood to adolescence then into adulthood.

Among the most commonly treated disorders are:

limited thinking, difficulty concentrating, rapid distraction
lack of self-confidence, lack of motivation
learning and intellectual delays
hyperactivity and behavioural problems
poor communication skills and integration problems
difficulties with psychomotor skills
foreign language learning difficulties
problems with emotional development - immaturity
anxiety and stress
speech impairments
dyslexia, dyspraxia
attention deficit disorder
autistic spectrum disorders

The results of Scientific research:

One of the many scientific studies, carried out by the listening centre in Toronto, was a study on a group of 400 children and adolescents with learning disabilities which showed the following progress after undergoing listening therapy:

better communication skills. 89%
improved concentration 86%
decreased levels of frustration 80%
progress in reading 85%
improved language 74%
increased capacity to memorise 73%
progress in spelling 69%
greater maturity 84%

French national education pilot projects:

In the 1990s the application of this pedagogy was also successfully used in the context of the French national education pilot projects in kindergartens Chanteloup-les-Vignes, and colleges, for example Rutigliano College in Nantes.

The results are very conclusive with a greater than 75% success rate.

Unfortunately, despite these projects, the authorities have failed to incorporate this pedagogy in schools!

However, André Le Gall, Inspector General of Nation Education and Chairman of the Scientific and Teaching Council of the French Institute of Human Culture, had noticed in 1960 the value of Dr. Tomatis’ work. At that time, he decided to explore for himself these new discoveries. For 18 months, he experimented with the "Tomatis effect" on children with learning difficulties in the Centre in Paris, and obtained comparative results which he presented in his report: ‘The recovery of some Psycho Pedagogical Disabilities with the Electronic Listening Device for the "Tomatis Effect".

Research Evaluation Papers:

Audio-Psycho-Phonology, (Tomatis Method) has been the subject of a number of research studies, the results of which have been summarized in three research evaluation papers:

(Stutt, 1983; Van Jaarsveld and Du Plessis, 1988; Gilmor, 1995).

Stutt (1983) reviewed five studies of preschool children with language delays (Wilson et. al., 1982)

and children of school age with learning disabilities (Rourke et. al., 1982; Gilmor, 1982; Roy G.N., 1980; and Roy R.T., 1980).

Stutt assessed these studies in terms of their implications for education.