therapies

It's good to thoroughly research any intervention before deciding whether it is right for your child because good impartial advice is hard to come by. I would suggest you talk to an experienced AIT practitioner about any potential behavioural side effects as this is all ancient history for me, as we tried AIT nearly 20 years ago.

Even back then we were advised before we signed up that in a few cases there could be behavioural changes after a successful course of AIT. They explained that if the AIT works then our children's perception of their auditory environment changes and for some children that could be initially disturbing or even distressing which may cause behavioural problems.

That seemed logical and understandable so we proceeded. Afterwards I do remember a few minor positive changes but my son also suddenly became frightened of the Channel 4 News theme music, running out of the room at every ad break!

He was clearly more aware of the sounds around him and when a couple of months later he demonstrated that he was now able to decypher our previously distorted speech by starting to talk everything else became irrelevent.

That was just our experience and every child that has a successful AIT course will have a different experience and different reaction.

I don't want to be accused of belittling the possible behavioural consequences of AIT so let's imagine a scenario with more serious consequences.

Pre AIT an autistic child seems oblivious to his little sister bawling her eyes out next to him.

Post AIT the autistic child hears the screaming more clearly and feels her anguish so he goes over to his little sister and kicks her because her crying has upset him. As I said before you should talk to an AIT practitioner who should be able to give you real examples of behaviour changes.

I have found over the years that as we have tried to unravel our autistic son's problems, progress is often made two steps forward one step back. Nothing is easy or staightforward, there are no magic bullets, we can only do what we think is best and we the parents are the best judge of that.

I can tell you that if the AIT is successful then,

A) The psychologists and other 'experts' will tell you that your child could have started talking at that time without the AIT

B) Your child's teachers and speech therapist will claim that it was all down to their brilliant efforts.

Only the parents know the truth.

Keep Smiling and good luck with whatever you choose to do.

It's good to thoroughly research any intervention before deciding whether it is right for your child because good impartial advice is hard to come by. I would suggest you talk to an experienced AIT practitioner about any potential behavioural side effects as this is all ancient history for me, as we tried AIT nearly 20 years ago.

Even back then we were advised before we signed up that in a few cases there could be behavioural changes after a successful course of AIT. They explained that if the AIT works then our children's perception of their auditory environment changes and for some children that could be initially disturbing or even distressing which may cause behavioural problems.

That seemed logical and understandable so we proceeded. Afterwards I do remember a few minor positive changes but my son also suddenly became frightened of the Channel 4 News theme music, running out of the room at every ad break!

He was clearly more aware of the sounds around him and when a couple of months later he demonstrated that he was now able to decypher our previously distorted speech by starting to talk everything else became irrelevent.

That was just our experience and every child that has a successful AIT course will have a different experience and different reaction.

I don't want to be accused of belittling the possible behavioural consequences of AIT so let's imagine a scenario with more serious consequences.

Pre AIT an autistic child seems oblivious to his little sister bawling her eyes out next to him.

Post AIT the autistic child hears the screaming more clearly and feels her anguish so he goes over to his little sister and kicks her because her crying has upset him. As I said before you should talk to an AIT practitioner who should be able to give you real examples of behaviour changes.

I have found over the years that as we have tried to unravel our autistic son's problems, progress is often made two steps forward one step back. Nothing is easy or staightforward, there are no magic bullets, we can only do what we think is best and we the parents are the best judge of that.

I can tell you that if the AIT is successful then,

A) The psychologists and other 'experts' will tell you that your child could have started talking at that time without the AIT

B) Your child's teachers and speech therapist will claim that it was all down to their brilliant efforts.

Only the parents know the truth.

Keep Smiling and good luck with whatever you choose to do.