What is Auditory Verbal
Therapy?
Auditory-Verbal Therapy enables those who are deaf or hard of
hearing to use their hearing to listen, process verbal language, and
speak. Through Auditory-Verbal Parent Guidance Therapy, families
make listening and speaking a natural part of daily life. Since
1980, parents choosing Auditory-Verbal Therapy for their children
come to AVCC for support and direction. Following a logical set of
guiding principles, parents become the primary teachers for their
child’s listening and speaking skills. Listening then becomes an
integral part of the child’s personality.
Newborn Hearing Screening allows infants in the early days of
their lives to begin this process. Auditory-Verbal Therapy is a
highly effective method using technology for developing the maximum
use of hearing. This approach brings meaningful sound to the brain
naturally. Clear speech, natural spoken language and strong literacy
skills are results of Auditory- Verbal Therapy. Auditory-Verbal
“graduates” can communicate with anyone, using spoken language
throughout their lives. Adults who receive a cochlear implant choose
Auditory-Verbal Therapy for the same reasons.
AVCC follows the Auditory-Verbal International, Inc® Principles
of Auditory- Verbal Therapy. We use Auditory-Verbal techniques, but
the most important aspect of Auditory-Verbal Therapy is when parents
understand and live the philosophy that people who are deaf or hard
of hearing can learn to listen and speak. As the child develops,
AVCC supports the parents as part of the educational team. We
collaborate with audiologists, early intervention programs, cochlear
implant centers, and school systems. Auditory-Verbal Therapy expects
children to be included in mainstream education starting at
preschool.
AVCC provides a Professional Mentoring Program using the
Standardized Curriculum from AVI, Inc®. Many professionals are
seeking to be trained and certified, due to the success of
Auditory-Verbal Therapy.
Principles of Auditory-Verbal Therapy.
The Unique Principles of Auditory-Verbal Practice
The ten distinct principles underlying auditory-verbal practice
as approved by Auditory-Verbal International, Inc. ® (AVI) are
unique to AVI and part of the organization’s charter.
- Using audition as the primary sensory
modality in developing speech perception and spoken language.
- Ensuring, through the guidance by
qualified auditory-verbal practitioners, that parents and/or
principal caregivers become the primary agents of children’s
spoken language development.
- Preventing or reducing children’s
unnecessary reliance on lip reading, this in order to develop or
enhance language skills.
- Using the proprioceptive senses as a
supplement to audition in speech acquisition.
- Integrating talking and listening
skills into all aspects of children’s lives and personalities.
- The practitioner’s consistent use of
clearly produced, normal speech patterns under acoustic
conditions that provide signal to noise ratios on the order of
30db, this to ensure spoken language presented to children is
both optimally salient and can carry the various acoustic cues
that enhance the children’s own spoken language communication.
- “Fostering extensive interactions in
the regular educational environment with normally hearing
peers.”
- Inclusion in regular neighborhood
schools from early childhood onwards, rather than attendance in
self-contained special schools.
- Daily interaction with hearing peers in
order that they may learn normal patterns of speech, language,
and social behavior.
- Participation to the fullest possible
extent in normal family life.
Philosophy
The Auditory-Verbal Approach is based on proven theory that most
children who are deaf or hard of hearing have some residual hearing
ability which can be utilized. With hearing aids this hearing can be
sufficiently stimulated early on in life so that speech, language,
and listening can be naturally developed. This also applies to
children who listen with cochlear implants. The key is to detect
hearing loss as early as possible and begin the therapy process
immediately. With the passage of the Newborn Screening Bill, hearing
impairment is detected at an earlier age and more infants have the
opportunity to learn to listen using Auditory-Verbal Therapy Parent
Guidance Therapy.
Studies show that Auditory-Verbal Parent Guidance therapy works
well for families who have children with all levels of hearing loss:
mild, moderate, severe, and profound. The brain is naturally wired
for learning language through hearing.
The Auditory-Verbal Therapist guides the parents to emphasize
hearing as the primary means for their child to acquire the natural
ability to speak. The brain is naturally tuned to process spoken
language through the sense of hearing. This occurs with consistent
hearing aid and/or cochlear implant use along with intensive
experience in listening. Parents and Auditory-Verbal Therapists may
spend several years working together, developing language skills,
social skills, and refining the speech of the child through lessons
and activities performed at the center and at home. Therapy at the
Auditory Verbal Communication Center is diagnostic and
demonstrative. Parents are active participants in the sessions and
are required to do “homework” in between each session. Parents are
encouraged to record the weekly goals and the daily progress towards
that goal. Parents and therapists keep an “Experience Book” for the
child to review important language used at home and in therapy.
Natural language emerges from the child without the use of
instruction in lip reading and/or sign language. Auditory-Verbal
professionals agree that sign language and lip reading at an early
age inhibit the child’s dependence on LISTENING to acquire language.
The goal is to teach children that sounds have meaning, to lock
hearing into a child’s personality. Children progress through
inclusion in regular neighborhood schools from early childhood
onwards. The Auditory- Verbal Therapist may continue as part of the
child’s educational team.
Because parents are active participants throughout the therapy
process, they become the primary teachers for their children. With
support and direction from the Auditory-Verbal Therapist, parents
become effective advocates who understand their children’s needs. |