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UNDERSTANDING THE IMPACT OF AIT ON READING
by Sally Brockett, M.S., Director, IDEA Training Center, Inc. North Haven, CT
06473
Two scenarios often present themselves in the
practice of auditory integration training (AIT). One involves parents who ask
if AIT might help their child who is struggling with reading. The child may
read but not comprehend, or, may not be able to decode the words at all. In
some cases, the child reads so slowly that all the required reading can not
be completed. The second scenario involves the parent who pursues AIT in hopes
of reducing their child's sound sensitivity, improving language and or socialization,
with no consideration of the impact that it may have on the child's reading.
This parent may report with surprise, that their child's reading also improved
after the AIT. Both parents will want to understand how the AIT process, which
impacts on listening skills, can affect the reading process. We need to examine
certain aspects of the reading process in order to see this relationship.
The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) along with
the U.S. Department of Education's office of Research and Improvement have been
conducting and is one of many programs dedicated to understanding reading development
and supporting research in reading for the past 3 years. Based on this cumulative
work, much has been learned about how children learn to read and why some struggle
with the process. Although there is still much to learn, this research provides
important information that can be used to understand and help children develop
proficient reading skills. It can also provide insight as to how auditory integration
training (AIT) affects the reading process.
Reading requires the rapid decoding and comprehension of written words. In order
to do this, children must be aware that spoken words are composed of small units
of sound called phonemes. This is referred to as phoneme awareness. Phoneme
awareness is not the same phonics. When phonemic awareness is evaluated, children
are asked to demonstrate their knowledge of the sound structure of words without
letters or written words present. (ie. "What would be left if the /p/ sound
were taken away from pit?") Phonic skills are evaluated by determining the child's
ability to link sounds (phonemes) with letters. The development of phonics skills
depends on the development of phonemic awareness.
In order to read an alphabetic language such as English, children must know
that written spellings systematically represent spoken sounds. When beginning
readers can't correctly perceive the spoken sounds in words they will have difficulty
sounding out or decoding unfamiliar words. For example, they must hear the /it/
sound in pit and fit and perceive that the difference is the first sound in
order to decode these 2 words. This auditory perceptual problem will affect
reading fluency, resulting in poor comprehension, and limiting reading enjoyment.
When we listen to spoken words (ie. bag) we do not perceive each unit of sound
in the word (/b//a//g/). We perceive bag as an overlapping bundle of sound that
seems to be a single unit rather than 3 distinct sounds. This facilitates the
listening process and oral communication. Since the individual sounds (phonemes)
within words are not consciously heard by the listener, no one receives natural
practice in understanding that words are composed of smaller distinct sound
units. Thus, the early stages of reading instruction must focus on phoneme awareness
and phonics skills, and providing practice with these skills in text is critical.
Since readers have a limit on their attention span and memory, it is essential
to develop fluency and automaticicity in decoding and word recognition. When
decoding is laborious and inefficient, the reader cannot remember what he has
read and bring meaning to the content.
There are additional components involved in the development of good readers.
Good comprehension requires the reader to link the written ideas to their own
experiences and to have the necessary vocabulary to make sense of the content.
Good syntactick and grammatical skills and the ability to sequence also impact
on reading development.
Given this understanding of reading development, it is easier to see how AIT
can impact upon this skill. AIT often enhances listening skills and the ability
to perceive sounds more accurately. This may enable the child to perceive the
spoken sounds in words so phonemic awareness can develop and phonics can be
taught. Thus the basic auditory perceptual skills involved in reading may be
improved through AIT.
Many parents also comment on how AIT improves their child's listening comprehension.
They understand spoken language better. This improvement in listening comprehension
may also extend to the ability to listen to one's own inner language or thoughts,
including the thoughts perceived through the process of reading.
The ability to sequence at many different levels impacts on reading and is affected
by AIT. The child must be able to sequence the phonemes in words in order to
sound out or decode new words. Words in sentences must be correctly sequenced
in order to be meaningful and sentences within paragraphs must flow in an organized
sequence. The sequence must be retained by the reader if the content is to be
logical. When AIT enhances the child's ability to organize and sequence, it
may help with this component of the reading process.
AIT practitioners should understand these relationships so they can respond
to parents questions about the impact of AIT on their child's reading abilities.
