Principal investigator: Dr. David Feldman, Acoustic Therapy Department Director
Participants: 10 children
Dr. Feldman tests Dr. Amouyal's music on hypoacustic, autistic, psychotic, and neurotic children particularly those exhibiting language and hearing impairment, in other words, on subjects who are particularly closed to a resonant environment.
He notes, through an increased creativity in their drawings, a stimulation of the imaginary world, and confirms the real and often beneficial effect of this music on the emotional and mental world of these young patients, as well as the particularly “convergent” effect of some of the musical compositions.
Finally, experiments in this pedagogical field have fully confirmed the impact of Dr. Amouyal's music, clearly showing, through the drawings and commentaries of children, the expanding awareness, the stimulation of creativity and the desire to communicate with others.
The work of Dr Feldman, in 1983, resulted in a standardization of listening conditions and a first research protocol for CAP (Association Bellefonds, Institute of Special Education, Cenon, France).
For Dr Feldman, considering musical therapy as "therapy" implies rigor.
He insists on everything which a systematic study of sound implies: "...A deep knowledge of sound materials, of the means of using them, of the pathways by which sound is received by the organism and spread across the nervous system, of the effects of sound stimulation on the neurophysiological functions and on psychological processes in man both in a state of health and in pathology, and the role of sound as an element in an overall therapeutic program aimed at treating specific listening and phonation diseases."