Babies whose hearing issues are detected at birth, who receive hearing-devices and who start auditory-verbal therapy (AVT) before their first birthday, can have age-appropriate language within six months, according to a recent webinar from Hear And Say (Australia).
Founder, Dimity Dornan, presented Is Auditory Verbal Therapy Effective? to highlight the family-centred teaching approach of social skills and listening-based cognitive strategies.
Meantime, The Hearing Journal noted in ‘Auditory Verbal Strategies: On Bird Dogs And Play-By-Plays‘ that AVT therapists are adapting to modern digital hearing-devices:
With modern hearing aids, wireless hearing assistance, and cochlear implants, children with all degrees of hearing loss are learning to listen and talk like their hearing friends, even before entering preschool.
One outcome from AVT is that children can acquire two spoken languages, as Singapore based mother Cheryl Leong, outlines in How I pushed my sons to excel:
Recognising his inclination for languages, I let Joseph learn Mandarin in Primary 1. It’s not an easy language even for [typical] students to tackle because of its tonal nature, but by the end of Joseph’s first year, he was scoring full marks on his tests.
With over 20,000 children in the US aged 0 to 5 – and their families – looking to access AVT services, the challenge is to provide the core training that both therapists and families need. Telepractice provides some solutions but sessional face-time will always be needed.
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