Indulge us, if you will, with a simple analogy: communication is in some ways similar to driving a car.
On the surface, it’s all very straightforward: put the key in, the car starts. Press the pedal down and the car moves forward. Turn the wheel and it turns the car. (Please bear with me – we haven’t even gotten to the really interesting part yet.)
Communication can be understood in a similar way: give a greeting, receive a greeting back. Ask a question, receive an answer. Massive oversimplifications to be sure, but daily life does not usually ask us to think about these things in detail. We only start to think more deeply about how these things work when something goes wrong.
You’ve almost certainly seen it before: the car starts making a weird noise, or the dreaded MAINTENANCE REQUIRED light comes up on the dashboard, and immediately that happy illusion is shattered, because now you have to get it looked at by a professional. Meanwhile, the car might still run, but there is no longer any telling when the crucial break might occur.
Communication can be like that too: a complex system of structures in the body must work in concert in order to be functional – which means that a suboptimal working part such as auditory discrimination, processing speed, etc. in this system can quickly snowball and threaten the whole operation of the listening function. This in turn could impact attention, working memory, energy levels, emotional regulation, etc.
A Peek “Under the Hood” of Communication
Acknowledging that you probably are not visiting our website to learn more about cars, allow us to break down the processes that enable us to communicate:
- One hears a sound that they recognize as speech. The brain selectively tunes its attention to that speech and does its best to ignore other sounds around it.
- As the other person is speaking, the brain gets to work on breaking down this speech – picking out the words, listening for changes in pitch, etc – and creates a memory of the entire sentence to provide structure for the information that is being communicated.
- After the speech is done, the meaning is (hopefully) understood, and the listener is now tasked with forming a relevant response out of the same raw materials.
Keep in mind that, for every complete sentence found in the above description (and at several points in between), another structure or network in the brain and/or body is being engaged to perform that function. And we do this all the time! Kind of a miracle, is it not?
But much like a car, if any one of those minute points is not functioning “up to spec,” so to speak – in Dr. Tomatis’s terms, if these functions are not “mature” – it prevents the whole system from operating at full effectiveness. It can also be very difficult to tell from the outside what exactly has gone wrong, not least because the way these kinds of problems present can be so deceiving – but this, thankfully, is where Dr. Sacarin’s in-depth evaluations and individualized treatment plans, puts her in the position to use the most advanced aspects for her clients when using the method developed by Dr. Tomatis, come into play.
Where the Rubber Hits the Road
Much like the auto mechanic’s seemingly magical ability to diagnose your car’s issues just by listening to it, Dr. Sacarin as a practitioner of the techniques he pioneered has a wealth of tools to help identify and evaluate the many different links in the chain of the brain’s communication functions including quantitative Electroencephalogram (qEEG). When we consider that our inner monologue works in a similar fashion to that described above – that is, we comprehend our own thoughts based in part on how they sound to us as well – it helps us understand what kind of problems can arise when the “listening function” is compromised. These range from issues with reading comprehension to emotional regulation to muscle tone development in children.
Even better, the treatment approach developed by Dr. Tomatis (and practiced in its most advanced application by Dr. Sacarin) is designed to act as a corrective, providing targeted stimulation to affected areas of the brain to stimulate their maturation, leading to organic and lasting improvements in functioning. Medical science has not quite reached the point where we can simply order replacement parts for our brains the way we can for our cars, but Dr. Sacarin as one of the very foremost researchers and practitioners in the field worldwide has the means and the skills to apply the most cutting-edge techniques to achieve striking and long-lasting results, for everyone from small children struggling with dyslexia to professional musicians seeking to optimize their performance.
To learn more about what a “Tomatis tune-up” could do for you or your child, click here: Auditory Processing Disorder Therapy – Liliana Sacarin – Seattle, WA
