Discusses what causes stuttering and how the Sound Therapy listening program based on the work of ear specialist Dr Alfred Tomatis can help.

1. Stuttering and Sound Therapy
What causes stuttering? How can Sound Therapy help?
In the same way that we are right-handed or Sound Therapy feeds more sound into the right
left-handed (or ambidextrous), one or both of ear than the left to encourage it to become the
our ears is dominant when it comes to directing leading ear. The right ear is more directly
sound to our brain. linked to the left hemisphere of the brain and
its language processing centres. Therefore,
According to ear, nose and throat specialist and
when the right ear becomes the directing ear,
Sound Therapy pioneer Dr Alfred Tomatis,
the delay is removed, and the stutter can be
language problems are frequently associated
overcome.
with left-ear dominance ("left laterality") as it
causes an extra step in the auditory feedback Dr Tomatis worked with a group of 74
process. stutterers and discovered that all of them had
difficulty hearing from the right ear. When he
The left brain hemisphere is our primary
educated them to use the right ear alone, all of
language processing centre, and is where
them began to speak correctly.
speech, speech comprehension and language
comprehension is coordinated. Studies with stutterers have indicated the
effectiveness of Sound Therapy in 82% to
100% of cases (Van Jaarsveld 1973 & 1974).
What is Sound Therapy?
Sound Therapy was developed by Dr Alfred
Tomatis (1920 - 2001), a French Ear, Nose &
Throat specialist, who in 1946 developed his
own branch of research known as audio-
psycho-phonology, which bridges medicine,
psychology, music therapy, speech therapy,
and special education.
Each ear communicates with the brain
hemisphere on the opposite side of the body. Sound Therapy makes use of classical music
Since the right ear communicates directly with which has been processed by Dr Tomatis's
the left brain, if the left ear is the one directing “Electronic Ear” to filter out the lower
sounds associated with speech (either listening frequencies while leaving the high frequencies
to someone else talking, or hearing your own intact, which stimulates the brain and
voice), there is a delay in processing it, as those rehabilitates the ear. An emphasis is also
inputs then need to be sent from the right brain placed on the music entering through the right
to the left. ear to encourage right ear dominance.
Stuttering is due to left or mixed laterality Dr Tomatis wrote 14 books (of which 3 have
where the length of delay in processing speech been translated into english) and numerous
exceeds 0.15 - 0.2 seconds (depending on the articles1. To recognise the advances he made in
language). his research, he was named Knight of Public
Health of France in 1951 and was awarded a
Medaille d'Or de la Recherche Scientifique
(Gold Medal for Scientific Research) in 1958.
1. Including: Tomatis, A.A. (1954). Recherches sur la pathogénie du Bégaiement. Journal Francais d’Oto-Rhino-
Laryngologie, m(4), 384. [Translation: Research on the pathogenesis of stuttering, French Journal of Oto-Rhino-
Larynology]
For more information visit www.soundtherapyperth.com