Heidi Kyser

Recently, I had one of those assignments that piqued my curiosity so keenly, I wished I had more time to work on it.

I was profiling a local business, Brain Solutions, for Desert Companion and learned that it offered treatment – mainly for kids with learning disabilities – called the Tomatis Method. As I dug into the background on the method, I discovered that I could easily spend weeks or months just on that, before ever getting to a single interview. Then, the interviews themselves complicated matters even more.

The conviction of Tomatis Method practitioners and beneficiaries that it works miracles is almost as compelling as the lack of unbiased, scientifically sound research to back that claim up. Some audiologists swear by it; others are skeptical. I was left wishing I had a few more weeks to read Tomatis’ books and go through the program myself to see what it was like. To locate more people who’d done it with mixed results. I was left with questions.

Does the Tomatis Method really work? Even with more time, I probably wouldn’t be able to say for sure, but hopefully someone is working on a randomized clinical trial that will answer that question for the people to whom it really matters.