Auditory integration training

Domain VIII · Creative & expressive arts therapies · Guy Berard · 1960 · France

What it is

AIT is a headphone-based sound-exposure programme, not a psychotherapy and not music therapy. Guy Bérard, a French ear, nose and throat physician, developed it in France; sources differ on the date (Sinha et al. 2006 give 1982; Raising Children Network says it was developed in the 1960s and first…

Format

• Format. The programme is individual and clinic-based, though some practitioners deliver it in the home. The person listens through circumaural headphones to music processed by the EERS, which has a reported frequency response of 30–15,000 Hz.
• Listening days 1–5 (sessions 1–10). Two 30-minute sessions a day at least 3 hours apart (one trial used 4 hours), on consecutive working days; a 2-day weekend break is acceptable.

Who practises it, and how they are trained or regulated

• Professional frame. There is no regulated profession and no internationally registered qualification for AIT. Bérard practitioners are trained and listed by Bérard-method trainers. In the US most have been speech-language pathologists or audiologists, with some psychologists, physicians, social workers and teachers. AIT is not music therapy, so HCPC, AMTA/CBMT or other music-therapy registration does not cover or…
• Post-training audiogram (after session 20) and follow-up. Research protocols reassessed at 1 day, 1 month, 3 months, and in one study up to 12 months. Bérard did not recommend follow-up or repeat sessions, but US practice differs, and some programmes add a second 10-day course.
• Version followed: classic Bérard Auditory Integration Training (AIT) as set out in Guy Bérard's Hearing Equals Behavior (1993; updated with Sally Brockett, 2011) and described in detail by the ASHA Working Group technical report (2004): 20 half-hour listening sessions over 10 working days on the Ears Education and Retraining System (EERS, "Audiokinetron"), with audiogram-guided filtering. CD-based derivatives…

Evidence status, as the guide reports it

• Evidence status, as the sources give it. The Cochrane review (Sinha, Silove, Hayen & Williams, CD003681) concludes there is no evidence that AIT or other sound therapies are effective for autism and no evidence to support its use at this time. The Cochrane summary page is dated 2022, Issue 3; the…

Questions to explore with your client

• What drew you to it, and what are you hoping it will change?
• Is it a group, retreat or community? How do they respond if someone wants to leave or raises a concern?
• How do you and the practitioner understand what is happening, in spiritual or cultural terms? Is that a source of comfort, worry, or both?
• Does it use a device, heat, cold, water or a physical procedure? Has a medical professional checked that it is safe for you?
• Who runs it, and what training or registration do they hold?
• What actually happens in a session or meeting, and how often?
• What does it cost, and is there pressure to commit to more?
• How do you feel afterwards, in the hours and days that follow?
• Does it fit with, or clash with, the work we do here?

What practitioners of it watch for

• Pressure to buy repeat courses without measured change.
• New fluid, wax or threshold shifts. These are reasons to pause and refer, not to re-filter.
• Persistent refusal. Forcing headphones on a distressed child is not acceptable (see section 5).
• Family guilt or blame if AIT "doesn't work"; financial strain; hope being invested in one intervention.
• Requests to use more than two filters, or to choose filters without an audiogram; both fall outside the protocol as reported.

When to involve someone else

• New or worsening physical symptoms, or advice to stop or change prescribed medication: involve the client's doctor or prescriber.
• Signs of coercion, isolation from family and friends, escalating costs or secrecy: discuss openly and consider safeguarding.
• A crisis or thoughts of suicide: follow your crisis protocol. In the US, call or text 988; in the UK and Ireland, Samaritans on 116 123.

Drawn automatically from the guide's own sections. Stay curious: neither endorse nor dismiss what the client values, and check anything that matters against the full guide and its sources. Not medical advice.