What is Auditory Integration Therapy?

Auditory Integration Therapy, or AIT, is a sound-and-music therapy that improves the way the ears work together. It involves listening to music over headphones in a clinic setting for one half-hour in the morning and another half hour in the afternoon (at least three hours apart to allow the ears time to rest). These sessions are held every day for 10 days in a row, or 10 days within a two-week period (e.g., 5 days on, 2 days off, 5 days on). The equipment allows for more than one person to be treated simultaneously; however, in my practice, the client listens on his own, or possibly with a parent or sibling, but never with a stranger. Although some practitioners will pair strangers up to listen together, I feel this is unfair to the clients who may not be comfortable with one another.

The music that you listen to is digitally modulated so that it jumps around from frequency to frequency over a wide range of decibels. This forces the small muscles and moving bones in the ears to work hard to grab the sounds, constantly moving -- sort of like aerobics for the inner ear! At the end of the 10 days, the ears have improved their ability to process sounds sufficiently so that you are hearing the world differently.

AIT has two benefits:

1. It decreases hypersensitivity to sound. This improvement can quite consistently be seen before the treatment cycle is complete; in fact, it seems that, for most people, the 7th day is the "magic" day, the day in which the changes are first noted. That's the day that children can tolerate you using the dishwasher/blender/lawn mower or whatever noisy item used to send them running away in fear.
2. It improves auditory processing. This change occurs more gradually. The reason for this is two-fold. First, the changes that take place in the ear result in the person having to relearn the once-familiar in his world. For example, if he used to hear the word "fork" as "for," he now needs to relearn that the proper word for a tined eating utensil is "fork." He also has to learn that "for" is still the correct word to use when saying "this is for you," or "I am four years old." This can take some time. Secondly, the changes from AIT occur not only in the ear; AIT also stimulates cell-growth in the brain. Obviously, cell-growth isn't spontaneous, so changes resulting from this growth may occur gradually. Changes in auditory processing can be seen as early as a few days after AIT begins, and as late as 3 months after the completion of AIT.