Waiting
When I first started as a therapist, I felt like every minute of the session had to be filled with chatter… and that chatter usually ended up being mine. I assumed that any “dead air” would make the parents think that I was being lazy, or wasn’t doing my job, or didn’t plan enough for the session. Big mistake! In those first years, I missed so many opportunities to just wait it out. I jumped in before even giving the child a chance to breathe, let alone respond. In fact, it’s almost impossible to OVERestimate the amount of processing time a child needs.
HELP! My Child Won’t Wear His Cochlear Implant Processor!
This is a common question (more like agonized wail) I hear from parents, both in person and online. You go through the entire process of CI candidacy and surgery, and then… the child doesn’t want to (or just plain won’t) wear the cochlear implant processor. Where do we go from here!?!
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Choose Your Highlighter
Acoustic highlighting is a key strategy in Auditory Verbal Therapy. By changing the way that we present verbal information (for example, adding emphasis, repetition, or intonation), we can help children tune in to specific aspects of the signal, such as a new word or missed speech sound. There are many different ways to acoustically highlight, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking they’re all equally good in every situation. Just as you carefully choose colors to fill in a coloring page, be careful to choose the right highlighter for the job. Learning that acoustic highlighting exists is just step one. Here are some thoughts on how to take your highlighting skills to the next level!
Considering Alternative Means of Expressive Communication
While learning to listen and speak is possible for many children who have hearing loss, there are some children who, for reasons of additional disabilities or other complicating conditions, can learn to listen with technology but may struggle to produce spoken language. What choices should parents and professionals consider when deciding how to best help these children? Below, I’ll discuss two case studies of children in this situation and some factors to consider when planning intervention.
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Learning to Listen Sounds
The cow says “moo,” the sheep says “baa,” and pretty soon the entire therapy room is sounding like a barnyard… but what are these Learning to Listen Sounds all about and why are week p-p-p-ing for the boat and woof-woof-woof-ing for the dog to help children learn to listen and talk?
Auditory Verbal Strategies Survey
I am conducting a survey to investigate the strategies that professionals (and pre-professional students) use to facilitate listening and spoken language skill growth in children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Please consider participating in this study to further the knowledge in our field! CLICK HERE TO PARTICIPATE.
It’s All About Listening/ It’s Not All About Listening
In Auditory Verbal Therapy, we want children to learn to listen all the time, but we don’t want them to focus just on listening. We focus on audition, but we don’t focus only on audition. Listening is an important factor, but it’s not the only factor. So which is it — is AVT all about listening, or not?
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Elizabeth A. Rosenzweig 