Auditory Verbal Therapy

The aim of Auditory-Verbal Therapy (AVT) is to develop a child’s spoken language through listening using parents as the child’s main educator and role model. Through listening, children learn to use their hearing aids or their cochlear implant to listen to their own voices, the voices of others, and the sounds of their environment. AVT also follows natural language and speech development. Through one on one time with your child on a daily basis you will help your child integrate hearing, language and speech into their communications and environment in day to day life.

Principles of Auditory-Verbal Practice

http://www.agbellacademy.org/principal-auditory.htm

  1. Promote early diagnosis of hearing loss in newborns, infants, toddlers, and children, followed by immediate audiological management and Auditory-Verbal Therapy.
  2. Recommend immediate assessment and use of appropriate, state-of-the-art hearing technology to obtain maximum benefits of auditory stimulation.
  3. Guide and coach parents¹ to help their child use hearing as the primary sensory modality in developing spoken language without the use of sign language or emphasis on lip-reading.
  4. Guide and coach parents¹ to become the primary facilitators of their child’s listening and spoken language development through active consistent participation in individualized Auditory-Verbal Therapy.
  5. Guide and coach parents¹ to create environments that support listening for the acquisition of spoken language throughout the child’s daily activities.
  6. Guide and coach parents¹ to help their child integrate listening and spoken language into all aspects of the child’s life.
  7. Guide and coach parents¹ to use natural developmental patterns of audition, speech, language, cognition, and communication.
  8. Guide and coach parents¹ to help their child self-monitor spoken language through listening.
  9. Administer ongoing formal and informal diagnostic assessments to develop individualized Auditory-Verbal treatment plans, to monitor progress and to evaluate the effectiveness of the plans for the child and family.
  10. Promote education in regular classrooms with typical hearing peers and with appropriate support services from early childhood onwards.

*An Auditory-Verbal Practice requires all 10 principles.

1The term "parents" also includes grandparents, relatives, guardians and any caregivers who interact with the child.
(Adapted from the principles developed by Doreen Pollack, 1970)

Adapted by the AG Bell Academy for Listening and Spoken Language, January 11, 2006.

©AG Bell Academy for Listening and Spoken Language®