BrightBeatz(™)

Is a global first. Based on the results of an objective hearing test, it delivers AIT specifically tailored to your particular hearing profile, directly targeting individual hearing distortions causing difficulties, while encouraging balanced laterality.

When thinking about wellbeing, we don’t often think about our ears and yet research has shown that how we hear effects how we feel and behave in many important ways. 

Hearing is critical to our survival and ability to communicate. But it is also linked to our balance and sensory regulation centres. So how we hear effects our spatial awareness, our sense of time, balance, motor planning and coordination, our eye movements and our sensory processing.

The ears also link to the Vagus nerve, meaning they directly effect our emotional regulation, digestion and autonomic functioning. 

The good news is that the ears can be retrained to hear in a different way. Auditory Integration Training, or AIT, works by literally giving the muscles and reflexes of the middle ear a ‘physical workout’ , encouraging them to function in a more balanced way.

BrightBeatz(™) Retune is a global first. Based on the results of an objective hearing test, it delivers AIT specifically tailored to your particular hearing profile, directly targeting individual hearing distortions which may be causing difficulties, while encouraging balanced laterality. 

BrightBeatz Auditory Integration Training (AIT) Research 

Reviews from the Scientific Community

Literature around Auditory Integration Therapy has been thoroughly reviewed over the years by the scientists. These reviews provide validity for the experiments used to demonstrate the effect of AIT.

In the recent review done in 2011, from 278 publications that were reviewed, three randomised controlled trials of auditory integration therapy reported improvements based on the Aberrant Behaviour checklist. 

Rimland and Edelson, two important researchers have done a lot of experiments to evaluate the efficacy of AIT, particularly in helping reduce the hypsersensitive hearing pattern frequently experienced by those on the autistic spectrum.  

Most of the evidence supporting AIT relies on parental reports, these testimonies have been driving interest towards AIT, however these anecdotal reports that do not provide much information about methods of measurement should be replaced with more empirical evidence, which BrightBeatz is in the process of doing in collaboration with Queen Mary Universiy, London.

General Information about AIT

Hearing anomalies can be an unrecognised, underlying problem in those with poor language, limited attention, dyslexia, dyspraxia and other learning or behavioural challenges.

A report summarizing empirical evidence on the positive benefits of AIT

WHAT IS AUDITORY INTEGRATION TRAINING?

AIT is a form of music therapy. It uses music processed using a special method to help with behavioural, cognitive, physiological and motor impairments that result from auditory processing deficits encountered by children. AIT was designed by Dr. Guy Bérard an accomplished Ear, Nose and Throat (ENT) medical doctor of Annecy, France.

Auditory problems include hypersensitive, painful hearing, unresponsiveness to certain sounds, inability to modulate certain sounds. These symptoms of auditory dysfunction have been linked to behavioral and attentional problems as well as to difficulties in speech, language, and comprehension.

These auditory anomalies, particularly hypersensitive hearing, have for several decades been recognized as affecting a substantial population of autistic children and adults. Data collected from over 17,000 autistic children worldwide estimates that approximately 40% exhibit some symptoms of sound sensitivity or hearing loss. 

How does AIT work?

Scientific experiments and individual parent reports have shown the significance of AIT over other therapy methods for helping children with AIT. More specific experiments to attain a deeper understanding of how AIT works on the physiological level has given results that are consistent with other previous brain oriented research.

Physiological findings: Magnetoencephalography and EEG recordings of patients undertaking AIT showed normalized responses in brain areas associated with loudness perception. One experiment revealed an increase of plasma GDNF levels after AIT. This might play a role in the decline of autistic behavior and this is consistent with increase in GDNF levels that have been reported during the calmer euthymia state of patients with Bipolar Disorder. Another experiment reporting Increased plasma levels of TGF-β1 supports the therapeutic effect of AIT, lower TGF-β1 levels are associated with lower adaptive behaviors and worse behavioral symptoms. This was followed by improvement in social awareness, social cognition, and social communication. One other experiment indicated a dramatic increase in norepinephrine and its principal metabolite, MHPG. Norepinephrine is a stress regulator that is released when the brain detects stress. AIT Experiments were also conducted on chicks whose hearing apparatus is very similar to that of humans, these experiments reported an decrease in neuro chemicals responsible for arousal that indicated positive improvement in attention processing.

Audiometric findings: In a large experiment involving 445 patients, audiogram measurements made before and after AIT revealed a reduction in hypersensitive auditory peaks within 5 hours of being subjected to AIT. These changes in hypersensitive hearing remained stable throughout the entire 9 months of post-AIT evaluation. Reduction in sound sensitivity reported an increased ability to shift one’s attention away from irritating and painful sounds resulting in more attention and focus. 

A CLOSER LOOK

Although scientific experiments provide a lot of proof for AIT, microscopic changes in a patient's behaviour is often drowned in statistical results and averages. Individual case studies help looking into these micro level changes in a patient’s everyday life activity within and after the training sessions.

During the training sessions, children undergoing AIT were often found to be calm and settled and paid more attention to the modulated music played through headphones after an initial struggle during the first few sessions. One study reports that the children showed increased eye contact and spatial awareness during the sessions. Parents reported that the child became quiet and attentive when the music started to play. 

Parents also reported significant changes  in the child’s focus, arousal, balance and movement perception, speech and language, social and emotional maturity, praxis and sequencing, eye control and impulsivity during and 6 months after the training. 

In a survey done among parents whose children received AIT between 1991 and 1993, of those who responded:

63 % Reported a decrease in sound sensitivity

63 % Reported an increase in attention span

30 % Reported an increase in language

Recommended Read

Hearing Equals Behavior: 2011

Updated and Expanded provides the reader current information on the impact of Berard AIT on sensory modulation and behavior, as well as the affect of Berard AIT on the auditory and visual system. The Berard method of AIT is regarded as the most effective approach available for enhanced listening skills, language, learning, and sound tolerance. Pre- and post-test data is included to demonstrate the types of improvements that may be observed after this 10-day retraining program. This book will enable readers to understand how listening and learning can "switch on" when the auditory system is rebalanced and functioning effectively.