Chirophonetics

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Chirophonetics ( old Gr . Χείρ cheír "hand" and φωνή phoné "voice", "loud") is a form of therapy for stimulating speech through body perception. The method was developed in 1972 by Alfred Baur , a curative pedagogue and speech therapist, together with his wife Ilse Baur on the basis of Rudolf Steiner's anthroposophical medical knowledge of the human being and is based on the knowledge of deaf education that peripheral hearing is stimulated through the sensitivity of the skin on the back can.

The effectiveness of the procedure has not been scientifically proven.

Mode of action

When each sound is spoken, a characteristic flow of air forms in the mouth. For example, with a “B” the air is blocked behind the lips, with an “F” it flows out of the mouth between the lips and teeth. The therapist transfers this air flow form with the hands mainly to the back, but also to the arms and legs of the patient and speaks the sound at the same time. The patient perceives the process of sound formation with the senses of hearing and touch and directs his attention to the correspondence of the acoustic impression with the movement. He hears the sound and “reads” the form. After repeating it several times, the sound impressions combine with the tactile experiences and the sound shapes begin to be remembered. The impulse arises in the patient to imitate the sounds internally.

application

Chirophonetics stimulates the ability to perceive speech and the will to speak. That is why it is used to initiate speech in children who do not or hardly speak, as well as in patients who have speech difficulties due to a brain trauma or stroke . By increasing the auditory perception ability , it can also help with auditory perception weakness (impaired hearing ability). Some methods of promoting speech development in children with Down syndrome include chirophonetics.

In education (mainly in Waldorf education ) and curative education , chirophonetics is used for developmental disorders, the consequences of cerebral palsy (movement disorders ), contact difficulties through to autism and in restless children, especially with attention deficit .

It can be used to supplement medical therapy in care situations for people who are disoriented due to brain trauma ( vegetative coma ), for small children with birth trauma ( premature birth ) or in care for the elderly.

Although chirophonetics was developed over 35 years ago, there are still no clinical studies that confirm or refute the effectiveness of the method under controlled conditions.

literature

  • Alfred Baur: Phonology and Logos Work. Basics of chirophonetics. Stuttgart: Mellinger Verlag (2nd edition), 1996. ISBN 3-88069-251-3
  • Alfred Baur: The healing method of chirophonetics. (Brochure) above: Gesundheit Aktiv Anthroposophische Heilkunst, 2000. ISBN 3-926444-42-8
  • Dieter Schulz: Chirophonetics . Frankfurt am Main: info3 Verlagsgesellschaft, 2016, ISBN 978-3-95779-046-0