Nowadays, more and more children and their families are concerned with learning difficulties and the lack of communication skills. Teachers and parents express their concern and show their inability to deal with the difficulties that a so-called ‘dyslexic’ child faces at school. Parents are most of the time unable to realise that there is a link between a difficult, day-dreaming or even too quiet child on the one hand, and the low-achiever at school on the other hand. Even special teachers sometimes seem so confused by the behaviour of such dyslexic children that they feel like giving up the work started with the child. Such children are considered very quickly as low-achievers, trouble-makers, etc… They very often fail to integrate into the school group.

After such difficulties had been noted, important research started to take place in various countries in the world.  That led to various educational and therapeutic approaches.

Alfred A. Tomatis is known for his work on listening and communication. He has highlighted the listening-speaking connection in all the voice phenomena whether sung or spoken. He showed in his work that any change in the listening process led to a change in the way one spoke. Similar experiments were conducted with people who had a stammer. Their reading improved. A. A. Tomatis concluded from such fundamental observations that listening and speaking were closely connected. This main discovery was published by the Science Academy in Paris under the name of Tomatis Effect in 1957.

Tomatis also thought that the same processes could be applied to improve reading and spelling.

A. A. Tomatis noticed that the control mechanisms necessary for reading and spelling are more effective with the right ear. It is the leading ear. Moreover, the wish to listen takes over the straight-forward hearing process. Indeed, as there is a difference between seeing and watching, there is also one between listening and hearing. Listening means a wish to communicate and necessitates the proper functioning of some muscles in the middle ear in order to decode a message. Therefore, a child can hear properly without being able to listen.

A child cannot really integrate language if s/he cannot listen properly. Language is ‘unusable’ for him/her.  The child who has learning difficulties remains foreign to the world of oral communication. S/he cannot connect the sound to the letter. The child perceives all the sounds in a distorted manner with poor listening abilities. S/he will need to work very hard – and often in vain – to understand and decode the message given to him/her. It is as if s/he listened to his/her environment with filters. Most of the sound discrepancies have to do with the frequencies of the spoken message. This enables us to understand what such children have to face on a daily basis. Both written and spoken forms are concerned, as spelling is about reproducing a sound in writing.

After many attempts to correct and compensate, the child will show fatigue, frustration and develop a feeling of failure together with a lack of motivation. Consequently, the child will find it difficult to concentrate and memorise his/her homework.

The dyslexic child is never able to exploit his/her true potential, which does exist but which is inhibited by listening difficulties. If the language process remains unchanged neurologically, a disharmony will be created and possibly lead the child to uneasiness. Such children are often clumsy and not at ease with their own body. They often appear to be sloppy and lack natural.

Hence A. A. Tomatis thought that learning difficulties have to be addressed by teaching the child how to listen and by restoring his/her confidence in his/her potential. This is done by training the ear following a method called the ‘Tomatis Method’. It re-educates the ear following an audio-psycho-phonological process.

The Tomatis Method goes directly to the source of the difficulties and allows the child to live again his/her access to language with the intimate dialogue which took place between his/her mother and him/herself from the very beginning. It prepares the meeting with the father and then with the social world.

The development of the child towards communication must be done with the cooperation of the parents. They must support the child and take part effectively.

Cooperation is a vital element to ensure that the child gets efficient help. The parents are asked, mainly with young children, to accompany the child to be on the ‘same wave length’.

The laterality of the ear and the impact on learning