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We are the most comprehensive
Berard AIT resource website for parents.
Auditory Integration Training is an
Educational
intervention.
Berard AIT is an auditory intervention that
consists of
10 hours (20 sessions) over 10 or 12 consecutive days, under the supervision of
professionally trained
AIT Practitioners
who follow the
Berard AIT protocol.
The minimum
recommended age for AIT is 3 years of age.
AIT is a sound therapy
with many
scientific studies.
All information
provided here is for
educational purposes.
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Special Needs Children (HSNC)
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 Interview
with Annabel Stehli: About Auditory Integration Training
"The Power of a Mother's Love
from he Litchfield County Times
Monthly written by Rebecca Ransom
March 2006
As a child, Georgiana refused to blow out the candles on her
birthday cake - the sound of air passing through her lips echoed like the voices
of monsters in her head.
Sounds had a bizarre effect on
Annabel Stehli's daughter, Georgiana. Insects pounded her ears with the
force of chainsaws, the methodic pump of blood through her veins petrified her.
Yet Georgiana, unable to speak during her earliest years, suffered in silence in
her own private world.
Georgiana was autistic.
It was the late 1960s, and Ms. Stehli feared the Georgiana was destined for a
bleak future. Never could Ms. Stehli have imagined that through a groundbreaking
therapy, the Berard
Method of Auditory Integration Training (AIT), Georgiana would escape
the constraints and isolation of autism.
A Roxbury resident and founder of the Georgiana Institute, Ms. Stehli has
detailed her daughter's troubling childhood and recovery from autism in her
book, "The Sound of a Miracle: A Child's
Triumph Over Autism" (Doubleday; New York, 1991).
Ms. Stehli is credited with bringing
AIT to mainstream
America, sparking a revolution in the international medical and autism
community, and raising awareness about how special-needs children and their
parents are treated. "One of the things I love to do is validate the
intelligence of so-called retarded people," she said.
"My life is an open book - literally," said Ms. Stehli referring to her
book, which has become a mainstay for parents with special-needs children and a
worldwide phenomena, featured in Reader's Digest and on the "Sally Jesse
Raphael Show", "Larry King Live," and "20/20."
It's difficult to imagine that Ms. Stehli, with her radiant smile and exuberant
energy, could have ever been the shattered housewife, desperately searching to
find a cure for her two ailing daughters, so eloquently and heartbreakingly
described in her memoir.
"I'm on a mission," Ms. Stehli said confidently while being interviewed
in her Roxbury home. "I'm a housewife who hangs over the back fence. I don't
have an axe to grind. I have options to give."
Ms. Stehli knew immediately that something was wrong, It was May 24, 1965, when
Georgiana entered the world, a month early, barely letting out a cry or grasping
an outstretched finger. As the months wore onto years, Georgiana's behavior
remained oddly withdrawn and unresponsive. Though Ms Stehli had her suspicions,
it wasn't until she read a newspaper article on autism that her misgivings seem
to be confirmed.
According to the Autism Society of America,
"autism is a complex developmental disability" caused by abnormalities
in brain structure or function. Characteristics
such as uneven motor skills, unresponsiveness, repetition and difficulty
communicating are common. It is estimated that nearly 1.5 million Americans are
autistic, with it being four times more common in males.
In the book, Ms. Stehli recounts the downward spiral of events that unfold in
her life - her first child, Dotsie, is diagnosed with leukemia and dies, her
first husband abandons the family and she is urged to institutionalize
Georgiana.
In an era when developmental disabilities were still misunderstood, Ms. Stehli
faced endless condemnation over Georgiana's disability. Doctors told her point
blank it was her fault, that "the mother's of such in fact fail to react
appropriately to their baby's needs." Other mothers criticized her for
"babying her too much," and paradoxically, "not giving her enough attention."
Strangers in the grocery store made snide remarks, linking Ms. Stehli's
disorganized purse with bad parenting. At some points, even Ms. Stehli blamed
herself.
Today, is is known that "children with autism are born with the disorder or
potential to develop it," according to the Autism Society of America.
"Bad parenting does not cause it. It is not a mental illness. Children with
autism are not unruly kids who choose not to behave."
Despite Georgiana's dismal prognosis, and despite the girl being labeled
"retarded" and "severely emotionally disturbed," Ms. Stehli refused to give up.
While living in Europe with her second husband, Peter Stehli, she learned of an
avant-garde autism therapy called
AIT, performed by a
French otolaryngologist, Dr. Guy Berard.
AIT corrects auditory
sensitivity and distortions through intensive music therapy, played at varying
frequencies, 30 minutes twice daily for 10 days. The wide-frequency essentially
"massages" the brain, reducing painful hearing and allowing the brain to better
comprehend sounds.
Sensory distortions, particularly auditory, are common in autistic children, and
may account for many " autistic behaviors." Although
AIT is primarily
used on autism, Dr. Berard's research has
fond other disorders that benefit from
AIT, such as
dyslexia,
depression and attention deficit.
Not long after receiving
AIT, Georgiana began to change, For the first time, noise was tolerable,
sounds made sense, She excelled in European public schools, earning A's in
German taught in French, going on to complete college and graduate school with
honors. Today she lives in Oregon with her husband and child, is a successful
artist, businesswoman, international autism advocate and public speaker who is
fluent in nine languages.
After returning to America, Ms. Stehli was contacted by
Dr. Bernard Rimland, director of the
Autism Research Institute in California, who had run
double-blind trials on
AIT, finding the
results impressive. Hearing of Georgiana's success, he urged Ms. Stehli to write
a book on her experiences.
"People would stop me on the street," Ms. Stehli remembered after
the book was published. Parents of special needs children would call her,
looking for advice, support, and information on
AIT. "I always
had time to talk to anyone who called," she said.
Inspired, Ms. Stehli founded the support and informational network The
Georgiana Institute. But there still remained a problem -
AIT was only
available in Europe.
But Ms. Stehli couldn't be discouraged. "We had found a miracle, and I just
wanted to run with it," she said.
In the 1990s, the Stehli's invited Dr. Beard
to America to train medical professionals on
AIT, and found an
American company to manufacture AIT equipment
with FDA approval. Currently, there are many medical
professionals who administer AIT across the country.
Ms. Stehli became the editor of two more books,
"Dancing in the Rain: Stories of Exceptional
Progress by Parents of Children with Special Needs" and
"Sound of Falling Snow: Stories of Recovery
from Autism and Related Conditions," which have been reprinted in
numerous languages.
In addition, she travels the world speaking on autism and
AIT. "I like to
treat people who are never treated normally, normally," she said. "There are
so many people locked away [in institutions] who could be redeemed if we gave
them a break."
From the March 2006 issue of
The Litchfield Times Monthly published by the Litchfield County Times 55 Bank
Street, New Milford, CT 06776
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