This page sponsored by Pamela G. Steed steedh@nbnet.nb.ca, an AIT supporter in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada.
As many as 20% of the population suffer from distortions in hearing or sensitivity to certain sounds which can contribute to inappropriate or antisocial behaviour, irritability, lethargy, impulsivity, restlessness and high tension levels. After AIT, the improvements reported include more appropriate affect, expression and interaction, better articulation and auditory comprehension and an overall increase in academic and social skills.
Auditory Integration Training (AIT) is a form of sensory integration therapy. Sensory integration is the ability to take in, sort out and connect information from the world around us. Problems with sensory integration may include over sensitivity or lack of response to one or more types of sensory experience. Sensory integration dysfunction can result in difficulties with attention, speech and language, academic achievement or behavior.
AIT is a mechanotherapy. It exercises the muscles controlling the three ossicles; the small bones found in the middle ear. The treatment strengthens the muscles and improves the reaction involved in the prevention of sensory overload.
If the movement of a part of the body is restricted, for example the elbow, a masseur undertakes, by successive flexing and extending maneuvers which are progressively more accentuated, to increase mobility. This influences not only the related muscles but also the corresponding area of the brain.
In the auditory system, going from the eardrum to the brain cells, concise zones exist corresponding to low-pitched and high pitched tones. If one or the other of these zones of the auditory system is stimulated by certain programmed alternating sounds, the same identical result as that obtained by mobilization of the elbow is achieved.
Audiometric examinations carried out in thousands of cases before and after AIT, have confirmed the accuracy of this reasoning.
In cases where audiometric testing indicates certain frequencies on which hearing is hyperacute, AIT involves listening to music with those frequencies filtered out. The auditory system reacts to this training by adjusting the totality of the frequencies heard. Thus, the audiometric curve tends to flatten and hearing is normalized, maintaining the former frequency differentiations but eliminating the hyperacute areas.
The treatment consists of 20 half hour sessions at a rate of two per day over a total period of ten days. The person listens to the music through standard headphones. Music with the widest possible range of frequencies is then played though the Audiokinetron or AudioScion. This period of time is sufficiently long to ensure the success of the training for most people although a repetition of the ten day treatment after a period of six months or more is sometimes useful.
All of these books and several videos, including segments from 20/20 and Sally Jessy Raphael are available from The Georgiana Organization Ltd.
Since the appearance of an article entitled "Fighting for Georgie" in the book section of the December, 1990 issue of the Reader's Digest, condensed from the book by Annabel Stehli, The Sound of a Miracle, AIT has become known worldwide.
The primary objectives of the Georgiana Organization are:
The Georgiana Organization P.O. box 2607, Westport, CT 06880 Phone: (203)454-1221 Fax: (203) 454-3788
Society for Auditory Intervention Techniques
Autism Treatment Services of Canada
Kerry's Plance Autism Services
Last Updated: Monday, December 11, 2000