More About Evan's AIT Success Story: Five-year old Evan lives with his parents in Winchester, Virginia. I spent ten days with them to understand their family dynamics and treat Evan with Auditory Integration Training.

As with many autistic children, Evan resisted being held, squirmed and whined, could not maintain eye contact, and talked seldom. When I first met him the best his mother Paula could do was try to keep him on her lap.

I discovered that Evan was also very light-sensitive and at first needed a dim room to function even marginally—but ironically his response to light became an indicator of his progress. By the third day he could wear the headset if his brother Ryan would lie on the sofa with him in a dim room, and he began calling his AIT sessions his “goodnight music time.” As a reward for listening quietly I offered him a “drum machine” and he began to play definite rhythms and experiment with the melodies programmed into it.

This phase of his development peaked when he was able to remember and sing “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” in response to Ryan in a fully lighted room. By the way, I have noticed that many autistic children seem to have perfect pitch, and Evan appears to be no exception. And music evidently provides him with structure—one day I asked him if he was ready for his music and was dumbfounded when he replied, “Yes; it’s on my schedule.”

Other advances came one on the heels of the other. Evan could now name the shirt he wanted (“Madagascar”) and dress himself. He learned to hold a sandwich and use tableware—when his place was bare in a restaurant, he indignantly asked, “Hey! Where’s my fork? He no longer covered his ears from loud noises, and his sentences were as long as 8 words. He loves water and the nearby lake, just like other children his age.

Evan now will talk on the phone and invite others to play with him. And by the way, he’s now fully POTTY-TRAINED.