Laterality and language

French Association of Audio-Psycho-Phonology (Amiens). Paper by Doctor Jean Raynaud, neuro-psychiatrist at Dax, presented at the Pau Encounter Days, on 7 and 8 July 1979.

Raynaud considers laterality not as a mere manual preference, but as a global phenomenon engaging the whole body, the sensory organs and the cerebral hemispheres. He grants the ear a primary role: a functional organ from intra-uterine life onwards, it ensures the control of the voice through the audio-phonatory loop brought to light by Tomatis. To each ear corresponds a crossed circuit referring to a hemisphere, and the predominance of one circuit orients speech. The practice of treatments under the electronic ear shows that, by favouring the right audio-phonatory circuit in the stammerer or the left-hander, notable improvements in speech are obtained, and sometimes a spontaneous reharmonization of manual laterality. Drawing on Mesker, Jousse and Jakobson, the author maintains that what “lateralizes” is above all the language of the world transmitted by the rhythmic-melodic voice of the mother. The disorders — stammering, dyslexia, functional strabismus, delays — are re-read as anomalies of laterality and of the symbolic function, calling for a personalized approach rather than a purely nosographic one.

Historical context — Auditory laterality, or the “directing ear,” constitutes one of the pillars of the audio-psycho-phonology developed by Alfred Tomatis: listening, and not hearing alone, conditions phonation and access to language. This 1979 paper illustrates the diffusion of these theses within the French-speaking professional associations, in dialogue with the neuropsychology of the time (Hécaen, Kimura, Witelson).