Félicie Affolter was born (on February 22, 1926) and grew up in St. Gallen, Switzerland. She attended elementary and secondary school there, then the cantonal teacher training college in Rorschach, where she graduated with a teaching certificate. She passed away on November 5, 2024 at the age of 98 after a long and fulfilling life.
Affolter began to compare hearing and deaf children in non-verbal operational performance according to Piaget - the basis for her diploma/licensure thesis with Piaget. After graduating in Geneva, she continued these comparisons in part-time work at the „Center d'Epistėmologie“ in Geneva under the direction of J. Piaget for a year.
After subsequent teaching experience with the children at the speech therapy school, the opportunity arose to continue her studies. For the first time since the end of the war, the University of Heidelberg/DE organized a training programme for teachers at schools for the deaf and for children with difficulties in language development. As a Swiss national, F. Affolter was able to take part in the program and graduated after two years in 1953. Back in Switzerland, F. Affolter now taught language to young deaf children. „A magnificent undertaking!“, as she repeatedly emphasized herself.
In addition to the deaf children, children with delayed speech development also came to the speech therapy school. These were children who could hear, but could not hear. At the time, they were referred to as „hearing mute“. Then there were other children who, for unknown reasons, had difficulties in developing their speech.
Two further aspects were added to the issue of „language and thinking“ in connection with deafness: „What does „hearing as perception“ mean?„ and “What does perception have to do with the development of language?".
Affolter realized that she needed more knowledge and more professional exchange. Thanks to Piaget and his colleagues, she was able to take up a sponsored postgraduate program at the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis/USA in 1959. This marked the beginning of an exciting new phase in her life, both politically/culturally and professionally.
In political/cultural terms, the USA was in a spirit of optimism, as it was a Russian and not an American who had first ventured into space. The Americans with Kennedy as president wanted to catch up and increase their knowledge. This was expressed through openness and a willingness to engage in discussions with others. Affolter was very often asked for her opinion on what or how she, as a European, thought about this or that.
From a professional perspective, the advisors at the university put together an excellent study program for Affolter as soon as they learned of her interest in speech and hearing. Her main area of interest was the Department of Audiology and Speech Pathology, including „Disorders of Communication“ with Professors Frank Lassman, Hildred Schuell and Jerry Siegel. There was also a summer session with Wever, a colleague of Békésy, on his hearing theories. There was also James Jenkins, a specialist in Affolter's secondary field of psycholinguistics. Jenkins came from the Department of Psychology. This was also the birthplace of Skinner's „behavioral theory“, which had also found its way into Switzerland with its „conditioning“ in the post-war years, driven by German psychologists.
Affolter's sponsors extended her scholarship period and made it possible for her to go on an additional study trip to schools for the deaf in various states in the USA.
After graduating with a Master of Sciences in audiology and speech pathology, Affolter returned to Switzerland. New tasks awaited her there, as Swiss disability insurance had come into force in the meantime. Suddenly, money was available for the early detection of children with speech development difficulties. Affolter was therefore able to apply her newly acquired knowledge: In the early assessment of children with speech difficulties, including hearing assessments and the fitting of hearing aids. In addition, Affolter was given a teaching position at the University of Fribourg's Institute of Special Education for Speech Therapy, including the founding of a pediatric audiology center at the Cantonal Hospital of St. Gallen.
Affolter realized that such demands and the associated responsibility required further knowledge. She decided to continue her studies in the USA and obtain a „Ph. D.“ (philosophical doctorate). However, the situation in the USA had changed drastically in the academic and cultural environment since Kennedy's death and under the Nixon presidency. Their inquiries to various universities were answered negatively, with the explanation that there was no money for foreign students.
After much effort, Affolter finally obtained a position as an assistant at Pennsylvania State University, in the middle of the „nowhere of the Allegeny mountains“. She spent three years in Republican Pennsylvania and experienced a time that was very different from her time in Minnesota. It was the time of the so-called „68s“, a time of student unrest. These had begun in California and quickly spread to Ohio - and then to Pennsylvania at Penn State University. And there, Affolter and her doctoral program were caught in the middle of the maelstrom. For example, the defense of her dissertation had to be moved off campus at short notice because of the riots. Some time later, her doctoral program in „Speech Sciences“ was successfully completed (Affolter, 1970).
Shortly afterwards, she paid a farewell visit to her professors and friends at the University of Minnesota. Here she learned about the founding of a „Center for Human Learning“ at the University of Minnesota. The initiator was Prof. James Jenkins, her former advisor in psycholinguistics. For Affolter, it was like a small culmination of her time in the USA: as an antithesis to Skinner's „Behavior Modification“ with concepts such as frequency, reward/punishment, motivation - and countless laboratory experiments on rats, now a huge step further into the complexity of human learning.
Affolter returned to Switzerland in 1970. This marked the beginning of another important phase in his life: research related to clinical work, made possible by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), with a dynamic team of collaborators and a circle of stimulating professionals, in Switzerland and in the USA.
It took several years to set up the pediatric audiology center at St.Gallen Cantonal Hospital. The children referred with speech and non-speech impairments were younger, more severely impaired, came from near and ever more distant places of residence and required intensive treatment and parent counseling. The team became increasingly aware of the gaps in their knowledge about the nature of treatment. This was particularly due to the lack of knowledge about what these children were missing - and this in connection with the continuing lack of knowledge about the prerequisites for language development. Affolter therefore decided to carry out his own research in close connection with his clinical work. With the support of the SNSF, Affolter was able to comprehensively address the questions she had already raised during her studies. She was lucky enough to be assigned two outstanding experts as advisors by the SNSF: Prof. Dr. E. Gautier, Chief Physician of the University Children's Hospital Lausanne as „godfather“ and Prof. Dr. G. Weber, Chief Physician of Neurosurgery at the Cantonal Hospital of St. Gallen as representative of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences.
Following professional differences of opinion with the hospital management and the associated political disputes with the canton of St. Gallen, Affolter's clinical work was continued as part of a private „Center for Perceptual Disorders“ (since 2012 „Stiftung wahrnehmung.ch“). At the same time, a „school for children with perceptual disorders“ was opened under her guidance (and with the support of the Gemeinnützige und Hilfsgesellschaft der Stadt St. Gallen (GHG)).
In the 1980s, the research funded by the SNSF came to an end. Affolter now had a large amount of data that required in-depth analyses and interpretations and ultimately led to important publications (e.g. Affolter, 1987 or Affolter & Bischofberger, 2007).
During the National Fund period, contact with the Center for Human Learning at the University of Minnesota/USA had been maintained through a few short visits. Affolter now tried to intensify this contact and applied for the status of an „affiliate person“ with special conditions. Among other things, she was able to convert the obligatory multi-year stay at the Center for Human Learning into temporary annual three-month stays and extend this to an employee (from the St. Gallen team). This marked the beginning of the development of the „Affolter Model®“.
The basic original working hypothesis of Affolter's research referred to a development model that propagated a hierarchically structured sequence of stages. Stage A is followed by stage B, then C, D ... . In this model, the development of performance at level A is a prerequisite for the occurrence of performance at level B and so on. This means that the development of performance at level X is a prerequisite for the development of performance at level Y, whereby the performance at level Y is assumed to be directly dependent on the performance at level X. When working with children, this means Ensure that the child demonstrates level X performance before addressing level Y performance (Inhelder et al.,1974).
In the course of clinical work, doubts about this model arose and became increasingly stronger. Research, including various cross-sectional studies and especially long-term data, could not be explained by this model of direct dependence between developmental stages. But no other model was available.
Affolter analyzed the results from the aforementioned cross-sectional studies and the long-term findings. She compared the performance of children with developmental disabilities and children with peripheral sensory impairments (blind and deaf children) with the performance of children with severe impairments in language development and children with profound developmental problems (e.g. autism). She was particularly interested in perceptual performance, cognitive performance, imitation, symbolic behavior, language and motor skills.
There was Piaget's theory with interaction as the basis of evolution. There was everyday life and also the „non-linguistic solving of problems in everyday life“ (Affolter & Bischofberger, 2007). Affolter began to speak of „interaction in everyday life“. She and her colleagues compiled countless observations. Together they analyzed and interpreted them, and they began to focus their clinical work more and more intensively on the findings.
Finally, the „growth of a tree with its root“ model was born. The tree grows thanks to its root and a suitable environment; branches grow from the root, one branch after the other, in a sequence, always directly dependent on the root.
Only with such a root/tree model was it possible to classify the data of the different test groups. The model can be used wherever development is involved, i.e. in normal children as well as in children with a developmental impairment, but also where the new acquisition or reacquisition of performance in acquired brain damage and the preservation and/or stimulation of brain functions in geriatric patients are concerned.
The practical-clinical collaboration with the „Affolter team“ at the Burgau/DE rehabilitation clinic was particularly intensive, also in the form of numerous courses.
The scientific collaboration with the Center for Human Learning (later Center for Cognitive Sciences) at the University of Minnesota/USA continued, with annual three-month visits. In a lively exchange with the experts there, various publications were and are still being produced that focus on theoretical aspects, but also on the practical application of the Affolter Model®.
In 1994, Affolter was named „Person of the Year in Infant Studies“ by Michigan State University in East Lansing and was also commissioned to give lectures and various seminars.
In 1996, Affolter was chosen by the same university for the so-called „Oyer lecture“ of the year. At the same time, she began her participation in a one-year symposium on „Movement and Action in Learning and Development“ under the heading „From Action to Interaction“ (Stockman, 2004). Dr. Ida Stockman, Professor in the Departments of Communication Disorders and Audiology at Michigan State University, was responsible for organizing and coordinating the special lectures and seminars given by various guest professors at the symposium.
In 2008, the Global Programs and Strategy Alliance (GPS Alliance) and the University of Minnesota Alumni Association (UMAA) of the University of Minnesota honored Affolter with the „Distinguished Leadership Award for Internationals“ for her life's work.
Affolter, F. (1970). Developmental aspects of auditory and visual perception: an experimental investigation of central mechanisms of auditory and visual processing. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Pennsylvania State University.
Affolter, F. (1987). Perception, reality and language. Villingen-Schwenningen: Neckar Verlag.
Affolter, F. & Bischofberger, W. (2007). Nonlinguistic problem solving in everyday situations in normal children and children with language disorders. Villingen-Schwenningen: Neckar Verlag.
Inhelder, B., Sinclair, H. and Bovet, M. (1974). Learning and the Development of Cognition. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.
Stockman, I. (2004). Movement and Action in Learning and Development. Clinical Implications for Pervasive Developmental Disorders. San Diego CA: Elsevier Academic Press.
https://global.umn.edu/honors/dlai/08_affolter.html): Distinguished Leadership Award for Internationals, 2008 Recipients: Dr. Félicie Affolter, Switzerland, M. S. Speech Pathology (1959).
