TOMATIS®

TOMATIS® Speeds Up Learning

A Tomatis® programme re-educates the auditory system in the most natural and gentle way possible using beautiful music.

We help business people and toddlers, school children and the elderly.

Tomatis® helps you learn new skills faster at any age.

Does TOMATIS® really work?

Yes it does. TOMATIS® is the Gold Standard of auditory training, and it has been for more than 60 years.

Here’s why it works so well…

When we’re infants, speech and sound enter our ears and stimulate the brain. This is how babies learn to understand language and begin speaking.

With the TOMATIS® method, we use what Dr Tomatis called his Electronic Ear to “re-train” and stimulate the ear-to-brain connection.

Today, all TOMATIS® Practitioners in New Zealand use the TalksUp®, the most advanced TOMATIS® Electronic Ear Technology.

With a TalksUp® and a TOMATIS® headset you listen to classical music and human voice gently modified with 6 alternating filters and Gating®.

The sound is transmitted through both the ear canal (air conduction) and vibrations (bone conduction). This simulates the natural way we hear—boosting the auditory system processes.

It is beautiful and energizing.

The music played through the headset is scientifically selected, and will change in timbre and intensity. The filters and time delays in the processing make TOMATIS® uniquely effective, calming, and relaxing.

It’s the musical contrasts that trigger the brain to pay attention and new skills develop over time.

As the full program runs over 4 to 6 months, communication patterns are established between the ear, brain, and body— and become permanent.

This is why the TOMATIS® ear-brain “workout” increases concentration, attention, and speeds up learning.

It works because TOMATIS® doesn’t just address the symptoms, it directly addresses the way the brain processes auditory stimuli. 

Another factor that adds to the success of the TOMATIS® Method is that it’s easy and joyful for all ages.

Children can play, lay puzzles, paint, or even do homework while listening to the music. Adults often just relax or do something they truly enjoy.

No more tedious exercises.

Even small children with a history of hypersensitivity love to listen to the TOMATIS® music.

Natural, non-intrusive, and scientifically researched, the TOMATIS® Method gets real results.

Tomatis – What is it??

Originally conceived in France by Dr Alfred Tomatis – an ear-nose-throat specialist – it has been used, researched, and refined along with the advance of technology for the past 70 years.

The Tomatis® Method stimulates the brain using modulated and filtered music and human speech delivered in specialised headphones.

Listening is the ability to use one’s ear in an attentive manner to learn and communicate. Dr Alfred Tomatis discovered that “The voice reproduces only what the ear listens to.”

He showed that the auditory system is critically involved in the perception and control of one’s own speech. Without it, speech cannot be learned or maintained with normal precision.

The ear is both an auditory and a motor system. It is the ‘doorway’ to the entire nervous system.

The cochlea and the vestibule are interconnected at the brain level and combine their auditory and motor function into one single function, listening.

The Tomatis® Method always stimulates both the vestibule and the cochlea. Consequently, it has an effect upon:

• Overall brain stimulation and activation
• Fine and gross motor skills
• Attention and working memory
• Emotions and stress regulation
• Socialisation and communication
• Language: speech, reading, writing
• Musical abilities
• Energy level
• Posture
• Self-management.

Have you ever tried to get someone’s attention by clicking your fingers? You use the element of surprise to capture attention.

The brain is very sensitive to changes that it cannot predict.

Attention disorders affect both children and adults and involve an inability to focus and sustain attention.

Paying attention often involves the capability to divide one’s attention between several sources of stimulation.

An attention deficiency impacts many cognitive functions and is not only very costly in a cognitive sense, but is also a source of difficulty and even considerable suffering for a child in a school setting or any learning environment.

The Tomatis® procedure is based on ‘Electronic Gating®

This function that is unique to the Tomatis® Method, brings about a perceptual sound contrast meant to constantly surprise the brain so that it stays alert and attentive.

The goal is to help the brain develop automatic mechanisms for detecting changes, which will consequently reinforce selective attention!

Why Tomatis?

Tomatis® gives lasting change! 

A common theme among educators is their frustration surrounding intervention programs which utilise “strategies” in order to create change in their students.

While “strategies” are often beneficial, the student may regress back into their “old habits” when the strategies are no longer applied.

The auditory training undertaken through Tomatis® for Education works to create new neural pathways which effectively bypass the old inefficient ones.

With time and a sufficient number of listening hours, the new neural pathways created by the Tomatis® Method become the regular way, the new ‘normal’. 

Tomatis® is 100% non-cognitive. This means that it does not require the student to understand, think, perform, or “do” anything. It makes Tomatis® different from all other forms of education or training.

The Tomatis® music is soft, beautiful, and relaxing. It creates a space of tranquillity while still allowing the student to participate in class, listening to the teacher and talking to other students. Tomatis® works in the background.

While the benefits of a Tomatis® for Education are many, a few key benefits will be highlighted;

• permanent and lasting change
• supports the teaching of the Key Competencies  
• is complementary to other interventions

* Unless doing Active Voice work, recommended in certain programs.

“The skin is only a differentiated piece of ear, not the other way around.” Alfred Tomatis

Your ears are critical to preserving brain function!

The auditory system has an amazing number of neural pathways that are vital to many of our daily functions such as Movement, Balance and Posture, Communication, Language, Memory, Emotional Regulation, Socialization, and Learning.

The efficiency of these pathways can be affected by many things. Aging, brain injury, emotional trauma, illness, accidents, poor memory and many other neurological conditions.

HEARING AND LISTENING – What’s the difference?

Hearing is considered to be an automatic process during which someone with the ability to hear, can process sounds that are heard. Sound waves are received and sent to the brain for automatic decoding.

Listening is an active and very conscious process and involves a great deal more than just receiving sound.

It requires the person to pay attention as well as take information in from all the other senses, especially sight.

Non-verbal cues such as hand gestures, facial expressions etc. all play a role, as well as meaning, the tempo, pitch and phrasing of what is being said.

Interpretation of the information received relies on the capability of one’s brain and mind function, past experiences and links to past and present knowledge.

Listening needs both hearing and the ability to correctly interpret in order to be effective and efficient. It is undoubtedly a critical life skill necessary to enable us to function in a world of communication.

While the ability to attend to what is heard, is important and considered a conscious function, sensory input can unconsciously affect our ability to attend.

Some of us are more easily distracted than others and there is a myriad of factors that can impact this distractedness.

In fact, many people who have a diagnosis of Auditory Processing Disorder also show signs of Attention Deficit/Priority Disorder.

Source: https://www.tomatis.co.nz/