By Michael Koster MS
A lot of the learning challenges that children deal with, including attention deficit disorders, dyslexia, apraxia, autism spectrum and even global developmental delays have a component of incomplete or incorrect neural connections and pathways in the brain. There are probably many reasons why these incomplete connections occur and many of the symptoms can be devastating for the child and for the parent. The most frustrating part is that many of the children who suffer from these develop some type of coping strategy.
There is hope for these children from the frontiers of Neuroplasticity. With a little help from the right type of stimulus the brain can rewire itself. Dr. Norman Doidge has written two books documenting these discoveries; “The Brain That Changes Itself” and “The Brain’s Way of Healing”. Although nutrition and nutritional supplements are an important part of helping the brain develop and heal, for the most part, prescription drugs are not a part of most of these treatments.
So what is the correct stimulus to help the brain rewire itself? In chapter 8 of “The Brain’s way of Healing” Doidge talks about the Tomatis Method and how sound and music that has been modified in a specific way can help form new neural pathways in the brain from the sub cortical level up. This method can have a dramatic effect on attention, academic performance, memory, sensory processing, speech, motor coordination and emotional regulation. The Tomatis method was originally developed by Dr. Alfred Tomatis in the 1950’s in France. The method is widely used throughout Europe, and is finally being “discovered” by Neuroscientists in the United States.
Music activates many areas of the brain at the same time, including areas for language, timing, spatial reasoning and emotion. Because the music that is being used with the Tomatis Method has been modified in a specific way that is somewhat unpredictable, the brain does not habituate to it and hence the higher frontal cortex is constantly engaged in 
processing. From Neuroscience the adage “neurons that fire together wire together” comes into play and new neural pathways are formed and almost miraculously the child starts having more self control, self regulation and the world around him begins to make sense.
The music has also been filtered in such a way that the method starts fine tuning the auditory processing pathways. Many children with learning challenges hear too much and cannot discriminate properly what is the important information they are trying to process. The Tomatis Method helps the child listen correctly which allows learning to be more effective and easier.
For more in-depth information: http://www.tomatis.com/.
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