Tomatis emphasizes that we do not know the origin of autism. But we know for sure that many autistic children live in fear and that the mother's voice can do wonders to soothe those fears and help them to finally awaken to the world of communication. Next, Tomatis developed an electronic device that both filters sounds and switches them on and off. He also developed special headphones that have, in addition to the normal ear pieces, a vibrator to be placed on the top of the skull, and that transmits the sounds directly to the bone. The filtered music or the voice is gently fed to the clients through these special headphones.
Many autistic people are hypersensitive to sounds.
The intensity of their pain can be excruciating. That is why they try to cover up their ears with their hands, burst into huge temper tantrums or go into self-stimulating activities. It is wrong to believe that this sensitivity is limited to the auditory system. Both the skin and the bones of the body are equally conductive of sounds. It is the whole organism that responds to sounds.