Dear Friends, these photos aren’t promotional pics – they represent real children, with real needs, which Berard AIT has helped over the past decade and more that I’ve been involved in this field. A year ago the little boy, H., above only had autistic jargon in English…. now he speaks his mother-tongue fluently and has even won an Eisteddfod in his local town for best interpretation of a poem …

I spoke to the mom of one of the boys above [D. is his name], this morning. She volunteered that he has had the best year in his entire academic career this year and she knows that AIT, which he’s had for the 3rd time a few months ago, has played a huge role….

I have to remind myself that it’s because of these moms and their sons and daughters that AIT has stolen my heart….. In the picture on the left are two little boys, both with developmental delays. Both have had AIT 3 times, both have made immense gains!

When Dr. Berard wrote “Hearing Equals Behavior ” the Pragmatist in him said: “Let’s just DO IT!” and he did! He chopped and changed his method to suit the needs of those whom he came to serve…. and now we’ve been cast into solid concrete – rigid, no relenting, no negotiation – the filters are the filters, the rules are the rules and somewhere in all of this, I mourn, because we’ve lost the heart of AIT, the spirit and the vision that brings change, because AIT is a change agent in the lives of the countless thousands who have been treated and can testify to what it set in motion in their lives….

So, perhaps our contribution is only a drop in the bucket. I’d like to think that what you and I have contributed in terms of life and healing in the lives of scores of children counts for something – we’ve done a great work, just because we’ve flung ourselves on the principles of a rather reckless pragmatist, whose method turned broken lives into something amazingly valuable and vibrantly alive!

When Dr. Berard wrote “Hearing Equals Behavior ” the Pragmatist in him said: “Let’s just DO IT!” and he did! He chopped and changed his method to suit the needs of those whom he came to serve…. and now we’ve been cast into solid concrete – rigid, no relenting, no negotiation – the filters are the filters, the rules are the rules and somewhere in all of this, I mourn, because we’ve lost the heart of AIT, the spirit and the vision that brings change, because AIT is a change agent in the lives of the countless thousands who have been treated and can testify to what it set in motion in their lives….

So, perhaps our contribution is only a drop in the bucket. I’d like to think that what you and I have contributed in terms of life and healing in the lives of scores of children counts for something – we’ve done a great work, just because we’ve flung ourselves on the principles of a rather reckless pragmatist, whose method turned broken lives into something amazingly valuable and vibrantly alive!

You see it in their eyes – the pain, the lost-ness, the longing to belong and to deep yearning to communicate and be heard. Above is one of the most courageous little guys, a real “cool dude” as he likes to be called, who has fought his battle with Cerebral Palsy and won; who scaled the walls of autism and triumphed; who struck a breech into the cold, dark walls of speech delay and emerged with vibrancy – a voice to remember, a boy to salute.

Without you, Dr. Berard, all these amazing victories would never have been possible! I salute you, the children and parents of the world salute you -your work and the years of wisdom that gave us the flexible, dynamic tool to work wonders in broken brains!

Thanks for what you did to release AIT into the hands of faithful practitioners. We don’t hold it against you that in the closing chapters of your life, you trembled and faltered – uncertain whether this great work would survive, and bequeathed you life’ work into the hands of ones less honorable than yourself. Sadly greed now threatens to steal the light and leave many to curse the dark as many endeavour to make AIT unattainably expensive and wish to entrench it in the practices of only a few select people. I implore those who have chosen personal profit above the joy of setting lives on fire with skill, to PLEASE re-think and look long and hard at these faces and what they represent, before you close down our practices and with it the gift that it is as we impart our knowledge and Berard-styled magic to the LD world.

Muriel McCarthy
Marsh’s Library
Dublin, Ireland

Abstract

Archbishop Narcissus Marsh (1638-1713) built with his own money the first public library in Ireland, situated close to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The library is now one of the few 18th century buildings in Dublin which is still used for its original purpose. March’s library contains four major collections: the Stillingfleet collection, the Elias Bouthéreau’s collection, March’s own books which also included an Oriental collection as well as mathematics, astronomy and a substantial collection of Latin Judaica; the fourth was bequethed in 1745 by bishop John Stearne, who was a major Irish collector. March’s interest in collecting Irish books and manuscripts was maintained by later generations of librarians of Marsh’s. There are now 25 000 books in Marsh’s including 90 incunabula, 3 100 books printed in the 16th and 11 600 from the 17th century. The catalogue of the entire collection of printed books has been computerized and is now accessible through the Internet.

In 1683 when he was Bishop of Ferns and Leighlin Marsh became one of the first members of the Dublin Philosophical Society. He contributed an early paper to that Society, called ‘An Introductory Essay on the Doctrine of Sounds, Containing some Proposals for the Improvement of Acoustics’. The paper was remarkable because of Marsh’s use of three new words. He used diacoustics to describe the study of refracted sound, catacoustics for that of reflected sound, and most important of all, he was the first scientist to use the word microphone.