Fads in General Education: Fad, Fraud, and Folly
2005
Auditory integration training (AIT) is a procedure in which acoustically modified music is played to a person for 10 hours. AIT was invented in the 1960s by French otolaryngologist Guy Berard. Audiological testing to determine narrow-band hyperacuity for individual AIT recipients was clearly prescribed as a key component of AIT. Frequencies at which an audiogram shows relative peaks of sensitivity are filtered, a "peak" when defined by AIT practitioners being greater than or equal to a 10 dB or 5 dB lower threshold than adjacent frequencies. Berard compared the effects of AIT on the structures of the ear implicated in hyperacuity with physical therapy for stiff joints: graded and increasing exercise. Audiographically, the aim is to bring hearing to similar sensitivity across the range of frequencies, that is, flatten the peaks. Berard had used AIT with other populations before he started treating persons with autism.