Berard Auditory Integration Training

Berard-Based Auditory Integration Training

What do I mean by Berard-Based Auditory Integration Training? According to my trainer, Cds were embedded with filters using today’s technology and Dr. Berard’s equipment, the AudioKinetron. Only approved music by Dr. Berard are recorded onto the CDs. Brillent!

Berard-Based AIT also follows Dr. Berard’s recommendation to stimulate your speech ear with 25% more volume.

The improvements in speech fluency and word finding are wonderful! You can finally say what you mean to say.

The affordability of the program is important because genetics play a role in every family. Completing Berard-Based Auditory Integration Training in the comfort of your home with in-home visits is invaluable.

Consequences of Distorted Hearing: Learning Occurs Through Listening

For more than thirty years, Dr. Berard worked in his ENT practice. During those years, he kept learning. Years later, Dr. Berard determined that distortions in the hearing resulted in auditory processing difficulties. In fact, researchers today know that distorted hearing affects the development of auditory processing skills needed for reading, listening, clear speech and expressive speech.

Do you have dyslexia making it difficult to remember names, spell, and sound out difficult words?

Past or ongoing poor ear, nose and throat health like ear infections or enlarged adenoids weakens parts of your hearing system and / or distorts speech sounds?

Is it difficult to listen and ignore background sounds and speech (pay attention) during class or an office meeting?

Program Recommendations

Your Moore Auditory-Visual Questionnaire Report and hearing test results determine the best auditory integration training program for you.

Our family completed an in-home, Beard-Based Auditory Integration Training program resulting in life-changing benefits that left me wanting to learn more. Each student’s self-confidence bloomed along with improvement in learning and socializing in all environments at home and away from home. Your emotional health is affected by how well you learn and interact with family members, peers, teachers, employers, and coaches.

Parents and adults kindly share their testimonials in blog stories and testimonial webpage. 

Using Brain Plasticity to Change Your Brain’s Learning Potentials

Dr. Berard designed Berard Auditory Integration Training to stimulate the brain. He was excited to learn how quickly the brain could change. After he studied the most recent research about brain plasticity, he understood that the brain could change how sounds were processed in the brain. Could sound therapy strengthen the brain’s ability to hear preventing him from losing his hearing abilities? To clarify, Dr. Berard knew he was not curing hearing loss.

Norman Doidge

Norman Doidge explains brain plasticity in his book, The Brain’s Way of Healing. He shares how after an injury, an individual instinctively uses their stronger, non-injured body part. However, this decreases a person’s ability to recover. Why? Failure to use the injured body part under-stimulates neural pathways from the injured limb to the brain (pg. 102-103). After an injury, physical therapy reconnects the injured body part to the brain through motion. Likewise, Berard- Based Auditory Integration Training pushes sound energy along auditory neural pathways to stimulate the brain.

I have seen and personally experienced improvements in listening without interrupting, remembering names, and recalling what I studied the night before.

Hearing Loss is Diminished Hearing, Not Deafness

Have you ever thought about the fact that hearing loss is rarely equal in both ears? Thus, sounds fail to synch-up on their way to the brain. Norman Doidge shared that more brain activity must occur when sensory input fails to synch-up. I believe this explains why a child with auditory processing difficulties can listen better while keeping their hands busy or moving. It makes sense that movement provides the brain what it needs for development when the hearing, and often the visual system, is under-stimulating the brain.

Sensory-Seeking Behaviors Are a Clue to Learning Difficulties

Sensory-seeking behaviors occur through movement, hearing, touch, pressure, taste, smell, and vision. All these develop the brain, our ability to learn.

Individuals seek sensory experiences to either calm themselves or to wake up their brains. Examples of sensory-seeking behavior are touching, hugging, eating, smelling, repeatedly jumping, prolong swinging, hanging upside down, or even making noises with their mouth.

Norman Doidge shares that a “noisy brain” helps a person make sense out of the chaos received from neural pathways signaling out-of-synch. Basically, the brain needs more time to process, to think, about incoming information. Then, they can chose a response, act. 

Auditory-Visual Training Protocols 

Your Moore Auditory-Visual Integration Training program includes Auditory-Visual Training Protocols. 

1. Research-based OSHA safe listening levels
2. Test of Auditory-Visual Skills to screen for central auditory processing skills
3. Visual Activities to informally assess visual processing skills
4. Moore Auditory-Visual Questionnaire Report
5. Case History: injury, diagnosis, overall health, ENT history
6. Activities to prepare clients for hearing tests to increase accurate responses.
7. Academic history, existing concerns

Most importantly, hearing evaluation test results and an Ear, Nose, and Throat wellness exam determines if a person is able to benefit from AIT and maintain progress.

Who Benefits?

Dr. Berard successfully improved each client’s tolerance to sounds. He helped individuals diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactive disorder, sensory issues, autism, dyslexia, hyperactivity, learning disabilities, language impairments, pervasive developmental disorders, central auditory processing disorder, hearing loss, attention deficit disorder, and depression.

Sound Intolerance Improves

In a majority of Dr. Berard’s cases, auditory integration training improved sound tolerance. Parents also shared improvements in learning and emotional health. A summary of Dr. Berard’s various case histories are shared in his book, Hearing Equals Behavior.  Equally important, are the copies of past client’s hearing tests before and after Auditory Integration Training.

The book was published in France in 1982. A revised edition was published in 2011, co-authored by Sally Brocket (ISBN # 978-0-615-474526).

Pre, mid, and post hearing tests have found improvements in client’s tolerance to sounds. 

Research, A Double-Blind Study (2016)

Researchers (1) found stronger attention neural responses, P3 brain waves, after completion of auditory integration training when compared to evoked potential brain wave activity before and during auditory integration training. Parents shared a decrease in these behaviors

• Less hyperactivity
• Less irritable
• Fewer repetitive actions

Earlier research by Edelson (2) and Rimland (3,4). 1990’s – 3 Double-Blind Studies with children diagnosed with autism and sound sensitivities had similar findings.

• Decreased negative behaviors
• Improved tolerance to sounds
• Stronger P-3 Brain wave activity is a significant improvement.

1) Sokhadze, E.M., Casanova, M.F., Tasman, A., and Brockett, S. (2016).Electrophysiological and behavioral outcomes of Berard auditory integration training (AIT) in children with autism spectrum disorder. Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, DOI 10.1007/s10484-016-9343-z  (summary found at https://www.autism.com/ait
2) Edelson, S.M., Arin, D., Bauman, M.B., Lukas, S.E., Rudy, J.H., Sholar, M., and Rimland, B. (1999). Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities, 14, 73-81.
3) Rimland, B., and Edelson, S.M. (1996). Auditory integration training: A pilot study. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 25, 61-70.
4) Rimland, B., and Edelson, S.M. (1994). The effects of auditory integration training in autism. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 5, 16-24.

Auditory Integration Training Improves Response to Vision Therapy

After tracking past client’s progress in vision therapy, Cheri found a need for auditory-visual training protocols. Did you know that vision therapy requires the individual to listen with comprehension and focus on visual work? Also, the inner ear’s vestibular system helps coordinate head, neck, and eye movements.

 Cheri Moore’s desire to improve clients’ emotional response during Auditory Integration Training resulted in the discovery of a high rate of co-existing visual processing difficulties with sound intolerance.