A Personal Note

How did I get involved?

People often ask how I got involved in AIT in the first place. The answer is both a personal and professional one. In my circle of family and friends, there are many who have either ADD, dyslexia or other, shall we say, "creative ways of learning". Many are very bright and creative but have had learning challenges. So we are always on the lookout for therapies and programs that could be helpful.

Denny Cooper, my "life partner" and colleague has a sister, Joy Yinger, a music teacher. She first learned about AIT and told us she thought it was interesting and held promise. In fact, she was so enthused about it that she helped sponsor me to get the training and equipment in 1993. Also, professionally, through my training as a clinical social worker at Columbia University, the emphasis was always on a "Systems" approach, in other words, I was taught to look at the whole person not just the pathology, to think "out of the box", to try to understand everything that is going on within the person's context of the environment as well as within the individual person.

I have also always been interested in alternative and complementary therapies and what truly works with people. Although I have a skeptical streak, I try to stay open to new information and learning. In 1993, when I learned of AIT and what it could do, I investigated further, took the training and received my certification and for the first 6 months only worked with friends and family to really see if it did what they claimed it could do and to make sure I knew what I was doing with it. Sure enough, we got very good results so I started opening it up to others. Over the course of many years I have used AIT with hundreds of people of all ages.

Dyslexia, asphasia, ADD

More personally, Denny, who had some dyslexia, aphasia and ADD elements, got great improvements. He said he noticed that when he typed something, he was able to do so much more quickly and easily. He does not type very much, so that only got so fast, however, he does like playing piano and that has improved over time.

Tinnitus

As with anything, AIT can open a doorway, but then the person must continue to practice and use the skill or ability in order to continue the improvement and development of that skill. For myself, I tried AIT, partly because I don't like doing things to others that I have not tried myself and also because I had some tinnitus (ringing in the ears) and was taught that AIT can help in some cases of tinnitus. Although I didn't have the ringing all the time, it seemed that certain sounds could set it off. For the first 2 or 3 months after AIT, I found that I still had that annoying ringing sound in my ears, however, after about 6 months, I realized, that I had not heard it in quite a while, so I am not sure exactly when it went away, but, it did go away.

It stayed away for about 2 ½ years until about 2 weeks after I had been testing another music/sound therapy and listened to the sounds thru headphones. Even though it was only for about ½ hour, I guess it was just enough to start bringing those annoying sounds back. I knew it would be a risk to listen through headphones to music after AIT since Berard warns against this, but I figured it had been so long, and for me, it would not be such a big deal to re-do AIT if I had to. Well, I had to, and I have been careful not to put headphones with music on my ears ever since then. The tinnitus has still not returned as of 10 years!

Writing

Oh, one other thing, I don't know if you can tell from this word-y statement, but I also found that my writing skills improved after AIT! Before AIT, although I could write ok, I always used to struggle with it, thinking about what I had to write before I could write, procrastinating until the last minute of a deadline, and just being generally anxious about any writing I had to do.

After AIT, I find that if I have to write something, I can just sit down to it and write! What a help that has been, as I do often need to write up reports and so on. There have been so many varied benefits from AIT, I find it quite inspiring and moving to hear stories of our clients young and old. I am glad to have been able to make AIT available. I feel good to know that I have been able to be apart of so many people's journey.

Warm regards,
Sarah