Our son did AIT in March 2009. He had a dramatic result, and I would highly recommend it to anybody who wants a therapy that will balance out several areas of concern. The biggest issue for our son at the time was a mild conductive hearing loss. The audiologist felt it was due to multiple ear infections. The AIT corrected the conductive loss so he now has 100% normal hearing! This was important because he could not be tested for CAPD if he had any form of hearing loss. The AIT did not eliminate his CAPD, and because of the hearing loss there's no way to know what hearing improvements are because the loss is gone or the CAPD was helped.

Overall, these are the areas we saw significant change:
Started having conversations. Used to just answer once and then drift away, but began to have 3 and 4-turn conversations!
Began to look us in the eye. He avoided eye contact before (no, he's not autistic), but started to have brief eye contact within weeks of finishing AIT.

- His sentence structure and clarity was greatly improved.

- In just doing AIT we saw more movement forward in our son's speech than the previous 2 years of speech therapy had done.

- His coordination was greatly improved. Before he could not catch a ball with 2 hands, and afterwards he could catch a ball with 1 hand!

- Became much more aware of his environment. He seemed to be very detached from his surroundings before, often tripping on things because he wasn't paying attention. After AIT he began to notice so many things, like the colors of the leaves on trees, or little bugs flying through the air.

- And of course, he could hear so much better!

He did have one great big side effect from AIT. About a week after he finished his mood became surly and very contentious. He was so disagreeable it left me in tears several times, and I called the AIT practitioner because I was really concerned. He did warn me this might happen, but I guess I didn't believe him. I did research online and found other mothers whose children had this same disagreeable reaction. The AIT practioner promised me that it would go away, and he also said the children who had the "worst" reaction, also had the best results. Sure enough, the bad mood passed after about a week, and it was shortly after that we saw the most incredible changes in our son.

Overall, I would highly recommend AIT. It's a simple therapy that takes 2 sessions a day for 10 days, and the results are profound. Ours was covered by our health insurance because the person who administered it was a psychologist.

HTH,
Bonnie

They did tell us up front that it might happen. We even had to sign a piece of paper saying we understood that it was possible, but they also said it was rare, so I didn't expect it.

They don't know exactly why the mood change happens. The theory of Dr. Berard, who created AIT, is that the brain is reorganizing itself, and for a time the person is a bit out of sorts, and it is very disconcerting for the indivdual. The practitioner we used said that the children who come in with the most severe issues are the ones who generally have these emotional reactions, but they are also the ones who have the greatest results. Also, when I read Dr. Berard's book I remember he said it was often individuals who had pent up emotions around their hearing challenges, and as their ears began to work better, their anger about their condition would come bursting out.

The research around the listening therapies is absolutely fascinating. Dr. Berard found a specific correlation between certain audiogram patterns and the person's behavior. For example, he found people who had a high sensitivity at 750 hz and 2,000 hz in the left ear only had suicidal tendencies. Sounds crazy, but he saw the pattern over and over, and it always correlated to suicidal tendencies, even in people who did not have the dramatic lives that would warrant that sort of depression. He even found it in children. After he'd do the AIT, the suicidal tendencies would go away, and in most cases never return. In a few cases the AIT would have to be repeated 6 months or 1 year later.

I don't think anybody knows why the listening therapies work. But I have seen for myself in my son that they do work. I myself suffer from mild anxiety, and I am going to AIT in a couple weeks since it's suppose to help a lot with that. I'll come back and let you know how it goes.

Take care,
Bonnie

Yes. The sensitivities would be found on the audiogram, which is the graph test that is done when they listen to tones through headphones, then through a conductive instrument (through the bone). The loudness at which the child hears the tones is then plotted onto the audiogram graph.

When reading the audiogram, all tones may be heard within normal range, which is then said to be normal hearing. But what Berard started noticing is if the graph had peaks and valleys, even if they are all within the normal range, these peaks and valleys seemed to correlate with psychological issues. So for example, on my audiogram I have 100% normal hearing, but at 3,000 hz in the left ear I have super sensitive hearing. This is an indication of anxiety. Like you, I have a hard time concentrating with ambient noise. And high, shrill noises are extremely uncomfortable. It may be because certain frequencies of noise actually cause painful hearing.

There are different forms of CAPD, and one has to do with discrimination of sound in the presence of ambient noise. A person with CAPD requires more brain power to focus on the sound they are trying to hear, or in some cases lacks the ability to do this at all. This is not something that will show up on a regular audiology exam. The CAPD assessments that test for competing sound discrimination are necessary to determine if a person has a true problem in this area.

Noise distraction is a similar issue. Children with CAPD that have trouble deciphering sound in sound will often have attention issues in the presence of other noises (like the lawnmower going while trying to do homework). I have heard it said that the reason for this is because all noises sound equally the same, and while some of us can tune out the lawnmower, to the CAPD child it is just as loud as if it were right next to him/her.

Does that make sense?
Bonnie