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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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Ear Check and Audio Tests for Auditory Integration Training (Berard AIT)

Pre-AIT Ear Check

Candidacy Issues and Filtering Protocol

Determining Berard AIT Candidacy

How to Read an Audiogram

Sample Audiogram

Other Audiology Tests for Berard AIT

1. Pre-AIT Ear Check

The Ear Check by a medical practitioner should be conducted within 7 days of starting Berard AIT. The tympanogram by an audiologist is required in that same time period.

Some parents may opt to have an Ear Check and/or the tympanogram performed earlier than 1 week prior to Berard AIT in addition to what is done just before Berard AIT starts if there is concern about recurrent infections, fluid, wax, or ear drum/middle ear problem.
A child’s Ear Health should be checked again by a medical practitioner just before the 11th session to assure that the ears are still at their best.
Parents and practitioners alike need to plan for the 10 day session and associated schedules and logistics. Parents often need some time to prepare children for Berard AIT.
Tests and checks are ideally scheduled a week prior to Berard AIT (or under a week - 7 days).
Parents with children who have ear health issues need to fulfill the minimum requirements and also use their best judgment for timing the ear checks and tests.
Hyper-Defensiveness: When children react strongly to medical instruments used around their ears, obtaining good results with ear checks and tympanograms can be difficult or impossible. Physicians and audiologists may be asked to help parents and Berard AIT Practitioners with judgment calls about ear health and readiness for Berard AIT. The input by such specialists would be based upon children’s known ear health and/or middle ear function history.
Please do NOT be overly concerned if you are the parent of a child who is ineligible to perform these tests because they are under the age of five OR because they may have difficulty participating in the audio tests. The tests may provide valuable information resulting in a tangible benchmark as to the effects of Berard AIT but not not essential to it's success.
Children who are not able to cooperate with the testing process at their first audiological appointment may be able to by their midpoint appointment due to the positive effects of Berard AIT.

2. Candidacy Issues and Filtering Protocols

Not every Participant tested needs filters.
Berard AIT Practitioners do not require this test for those who cannot test reliably.
The Audio Tests will be performed in a sound quiet, but not a sound proof environment. This is done to gauge how the Participant hears in a somewhat natural “real life” setting.
What is an audiogram? The Participant will be with a series of tones through headphones. The Participant indicates awareness of each sound through a voluntary response, such as pressing a button or raising their hand, placing blocks in a bucket or giving a verbal acknowledgement. After each ear is tested individually, the audiogram will provide a graphic display for the hearing of each ear. (see sample audiogram graph below)
The Berard AIT audiological testing will begin with the highest priority testing, moving through the tests at a pace that is comfortable for the Participant. The number of tests that are completed will depend on the ease at which the Participant is able to move through the tests and whether or not they are able to give a voluntary, definitive response to the test.
The threshold audiogram test can usually be completed by candidates with the mental age of 5 or older.
This test is used to determine if frequency filtering is needed during the Berard AIT session.
The main reason for filtering is to increase the Participant’s comfort level.
Filtering per the Berard AIT protocol mutes the sounds that the participant is the most sensitive to.

3. Determining Berard AIT Candidacy
The most significant information about an individual’s candidacy for Berard AIT is the participant’s unique, over-all history and current issues of behavior and learning. This said about testing, still the most significant indicator of Berard AIT efficacy is in the results that the Participant experiences in every day life and learning in the days, weeks, and months following Berard AIT.

If the Participant can cooperate, emphasis should be placed upon testing for 500Hz and up if the Participant’s attention wanes.
The audiogram should show each ear on a separate graph for the Berard AIT Practitioner's careful evaluation.
Many experienced Berard AIT Practitioners explain that these factors comprise around 95% of the candidacy picture, with the testing being 5%.
While Berard AIT Practitioners may see extreme irregularity in graphs that add strongly to the candidacy picture in some cases, often-times the graph shows milder variation. There are also situations in-between.
Berard AIT Practitioners often see that mild shifts in the testing post-AIT are accompanied by significant improvement in over-all comfort level, attention, and many improvements around behavior and learning.
If the Participant can cooperate, the first audiogram is both a very simple and subjective measure that requires accurate and consistent participant responses over an extended testing session. The threshold audiogram test for Berard AIT is a measure of how the individual hears 11 frequencies at the time of the test. It is difficult to predict specifics about the audiogram tests.
If the test is done by an audiologist not accustomed to Berard AIT, it is important that the audiologist tests all the frequencies possible – 125Hz, 250Hz, 500Hz, 750Hz, 1000Hz, 1500Hz, 2000Hz, 3000Hz, 4000Hz, 6000Hz, 8000Hz.
Emphasis should be placed upon testing for 750Hz and up if the Participant’s attention wanes. The audiogram should shown each ear on a separate graph for the Berard AIT Practitioner's careful evaluation.
If the Participant can cooperate, the second audiogram is to be given again just before the 11th session. Filtering may need to change at the mid-point.
If the Participant can cooperate, a final audiogram is performed after Berard AIT is completed. This will help to document specific changes achieved with the various filters used during the Berard AIT sessions. This audiogram may also be repeated 3 to 6 months later as the hearing may continue to improve over time.
Sometimes children can test more effectively at midpoint than they could test prior to Berard AIT. It should be noted that children often become more skilled and fine-tuned with testing over the period of the Berard AIT session. Their listening skills can be sharpened through the repeated testing experience. Children may seem to be more sensitive, when they are actually employing sharper listening skills.
If the Participant can cooperate, the post-AIT audiogram can be checked over time used as a base-line in the months and years after Berard Auditory Integration Training. We usually see a narrowing of the variability within each ear’s response after Berard AIT and less variation between the two ear graphs.

4. How to Read the Berard AIT Audiogram
Read more on Berard Audio Testing Protocol

If hearing loss is indicated by the audiological testing, a Participant will not be a candidate for Berard AIT.

Sample Audiogram

The Berard AIT audiogram measures the quietest tones that the Participant can hear.
The vertical line to the left of the graph shows the levels of sound that can be heard. The quietest tones are at the top and the loudest tones are at the bottom. The Berard AIT audiogram measures the quietest tones that the Participant can hear.
The horizontal line across the top of the graph shows each of the frequencies that were tested. The lowest pitch tones are to the left and the higher pitch tones progress to the right.
Ideally, Berard AIT Practitioners want to see a relatively flat line within the 0 to 20 range, indicating that both ears are hearing each frequency within a normal, comfortable range. (6000 Hz wanders).
COORDINATION IN THE AUDIO TEST PATTERN: of each ear indicates that the two ears are working in unison. Conversely, if the pattern in each is different, hearing may be distorted.
PEAKS: in the negative range (upper portion of graph) illustrate a level of hearing at a particular frequency that cannot be heard by the average person. This can cause responses such as difficulty attending, irritability because it is uncomfortable, difficulty in processing the other sounds properly, and/or create a state of anxiety for the individual.
VALLEYS: in the positive range (lower portion of graph) below 30 indicates potential hearing loss.

5. Other Audiological Tests for Berard Auditory Integration Training

There are other tests that are sometimes conducted, but they are not required for Berard AIT.
These tests are Laterality, Selectivity, Acoustical Reflex, Speech in Quiet and Noise, and Auditory Speech Reception Threshold tests.
Berard AIT Practitioners may also at times conduct listening tests to determine Berard AIT filtering.
In such cases, an audiologist and medical practitioner are still required for the Berard AIT Ear Checks (pre-AIT and midpoint), the pre-AIT tympanogram, and for other tests that parents wish to have done.