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Read About Trace and Ashley William's AIT Success Story!
by Connie Soles, AIT Practitioner, Hampton, Virginia

"Ashley was almost 9 years old and her brother Trace was 10 1/2 when they first arrived with a large set of challenges, not “simple” autism alone. Trace’s ADHD kept him from concentrating to develop coherent language skills, and incomplete thoughts leaped from him like sparks. Ashley rarely spoke or responded because of poor conceptualizing — when asked to pick up a yellow ball she apparently lacked the concept of a ball, much less a yellow one. And neither one of them was potty trained.

But a few AIT sessions later their growth seemed miraculous. Suddenly they could both multitask; at the same time they listened to the AIT disks, both of them could concentrate enough to draw and spell. Their mother remarked that for the first time Trace was drawing things she could recognize, and Ashley was proud of being able to color inside the lines and assign colors to keep track of different objects. “Conventional Wisdom” has it that multiple tasks split a child’s attention. But these were autistic siblings; an invitation to these tasks not only piqued their interest in the sessions, it also eliminated any wrangling over who had their mother with them by placing her in the “nontreatment room". They now showed two new expressions — concentration while working and smiles at their results.

Soon both of them branched out. Ashley loved solving puzzles, and Trace made a variety of designs with lots of things — even candy, which was replaced in the jar instead of eaten. When one of them was in a session, the other had no trouble thinking of things to do and even talk about. Trace no longer went off in three directions at once, and Ashley’s blank stares had disappeared. Both of them discovered rhythms and made a game of them, first with objects of different sizes and then using musical notation. When they returned home everything suddenly felt dull.

The following Saturday was Ashley’s ninth birthday, and what a surprise! She invited her whole softball team, and she laughed and gabbed with her friends over her presents. She and Trace even found time to play with each other. What a change from our first meeting; their smiles and excitement made everyone happy.

Potty training was no longer a problem, and they called about their progress. And the best surprise of all was the hand drawn and lettered cards they sent for our birthdays. Now it’s hard to remember that first meeting when its place has been taken by the photo of them sitting together on the porch swing."

"You’d never guess it from the angel in this picture. When I first met five-year-old Ganesh he was an IFO—an Incredible Flying Object. Everything was done at a full run; he stopped only to melt down into major tantrums when batteries ran down, if it was time for bed or meals, or if nobody catered to him. His expression was limited to physical effort and a few isolated nouns and verbs. He preferred tantrums, so adults could only offer him a menu of activities to pick and choose from. His pictures, which he called “fireworks,” imitated the motions of up-and-down scribbles—in brown, of all things. It was an unhappy color for a frustrated boy.

His input was nearly all visual -- after catching him, his parents could feed him only by distracting him with a computer and sneaking waffles into him when he wasn’t looking. He looked like a tattooed pagan -- to him, art was drawing on his own body with felt pens. I couldn’t video him because he moved too fast, and trying to get him to listen got me a kick in the shins that took over three weeks to heal. He wasn’t ADHD. He simply could not assimilate by listening, and his inability to handle input just caused more frustrated activity. So everyone else was frustrated too.

But there was a way out. He worshipped his older brother Michael and adored his parents, but his feelings were unfocused. As soon as Michael and his mother started wearing them too, Ganesh put on the AIT headphones -- though, as with all children, popping bubble-wrap helped a lot. His coloring quickly became focused -- solving his hearing confusion freed him to make pictures that looked like real things instead of aimless actions, and at once he got the idea that coloring inside the lines made shapes and not just movements. He had started slowing down and observing.

Soon he stopped resisting the headphones and started responding to a range of sounds, including voices. Now he could HEAR the difference between a statement, a question, and a command. His playful father found that the mantras he had taught Ganesh began paying off. Ganesh learned patience because he could respond to the tone of those talking to him, and tantrums faded away as he saw that only sentences could get what a very bright boy really wanted.

By then his parents had stopped responding to his tantrums and had learned how to tell him what he must do and why. Ganesh’s vocabulary and grammar exploded because he could communicate just what he wanted in sentences. He could quietly play by himself on the computer (with remarks but no pants, as most boys his age do), and he even played “air guitar.” He grinned at using a fork and spoon, and proudly ate huge portions neatly at the table, a first for him.

Better, Ganesh shared voluntarily—is popup books, identifying things and even emotions in pictures, and horseplay with his father. When we confirmed what he saw and heard himself, his thoughts and laughter came like lightning. He is possibly the quickest child I have ever worked with."