Hello! We wanted to share the exciting news.
Please pass it on to anyone you think would be interested!
Tune in to the Mother Cub Internet Radio Show Wednesday, February 16th, 2011 at 11 a.m. (EST). Hear the interview featuring Auditory Integration Training (AIT) and Autism with our own Sarah Gewanter, LCSW, and Dir. Click here to listen to the show!
Susan Lynn Perry hosts the show. She is an author and outspoken advocate for children on the autism spectrum. Having had good experience with our program, she wants to share the information. Help spread the word by sharing this with others.
If you miss the live show, it will be archived along with other interesting interviews at: http://mothercub.com/archives so tune in!
Susan’s website can be viewed at: http://mothercub.com. Click here to view her blog about the show.
RESEARCH ON AIT
Summaries and Critiques of 28 Reports
(January, 1993 - May, 2001)
Stephen M. Edelson, Ph.D. and Bernard Rimland, Ph.D.
Auditory integration training (AIT), as developed by French otolaryngologist Guy Berard and based on the work of his predecessor, Alfred Tomatis, typically consists of 20 half-hour sessions of listening to specially modulated music over a 10- to 20-day period. AIT has been reported to be beneficial in several conditions, including AD/HD, autism, dyslexia, and hypersensitive hearing at certain frequencies.
The present review covers 28 reports on AIT. Twenty-three reports concluded that AIT benefits various population subgroups, three studies claim to show no benefit (or no benefit over that seen in a control group), and two studies reported rather ambiguous or contradictory results. Considering the great difficulties in both providing a credible placebo treatment and assessing improvement in the subject populations, these results are quite encouraging. The balance of the evidence clearly favors AIT as a useful intervention, especially in autism.
Following are summaries of all research studies known to us that have investigated the efficacy of AIT. These studies were published between January 1993 and May 2001 and have appeared in peer-reviewed journals, professional newsletters, and/or were presented at professional conferences. Twenty-six of the studies utilized subjects with autism, attention deficit/hyper-activity disorder, central auditory processing disorder, and/or mental retardation. Two of the studies evaluated the physiological effects of AIT on animals.
Section A of the paper summarizes those studies supporting the efficacy of AIT; Section B summaries those studies that claim to have found no support for its efficacy; and Section C summarizes the results of two studies which we have classified ‘ambiguous, contradictory, or controversial. Following these three sections, Section D, we discuss two additional reports in a Discussion section, followed by our Conclusions.
The summaries are listed chronologically within each disorder. All used Berard-type equipment and procedures. (We are not aware of any relevant research using the Tomatis approach during the time period covered.)
The following abbreviations are used for the tests/checklists utilized most often in the studies: Aberrant Behavior Checklist (ABC-1), Autism Behavior Checklist (ABC-2), Behavior Summarized Evaluation (BSE), Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS), Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals--Revised (CELF-R), Conner's Parent Rating Scales (CPRS), Fisher's Auditory Problems Checklist (FAPC), Screening Test for Auditory Processing Disorders (SCAN), Self-Injurious Behavior Questionnaire (SIBQ), Staggered Spondaic Word (SSW), and the Test of Nonverbal Intelligence (TONI).
Click here to download a PDF of the research referred to above.
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