During my undergraduate and graduate training, I had whole lectures, book chapters, and seminars devoted to the topic of behavior management and reinforcement — how to use primary reinforcers (food), token economies (how many check marks should equal a sticker? how many stickers to a lollipop?), prizes, rewards, and more.
Tag Archives: Professionals
Mapping a Cochlear Implant
Mapping (or MAPping) is the term for programming a cochlear implant to the specifications and needs of its user. While any cochlear implant user, or parent, caregiver, or family member of a CI user, has probably attended countless mapping appointments with an audiologist, the process is often confusing or poorly understood.
Phonological Awareness for Children with Hearing Loss
Phonological Awareness is the ability to detect, identify, and manipulate sounds and syllables in words. Phonological Awareness skills are CRUCIAL predictors of a child’s reading success. Children with hearing loss CAN develop phonological skills through listening.
Let’s Talk About Behavior
Discipline/behavior management is often the most difficult topic for professionals and parents alike. Children do not come with a user’s manual, and “bad” behavior can drive adults up a wall. Below are a few of my thoughts as well as some tried and true techniques that I have used to tame even the most trantrum-proneContinue reading “Let’s Talk About Behavior”
The Catch-Up Game: Children Who Receive Cochlear Implants “Late”
Lots of attention in the CI world is focused on children implanted young — often before one year of age. Research shows us that children who receive implants before two years of age have a significant advantage in the development of auditory, speech, and language skills (see Svirsky et, al, 2004 and Nicholas and Geers, 2007).
Crafts, Concepts, and Critical Elements
Arts and crafts projects are about far more the cutting, pasting, and bedazzling until your fingers are sore — they’re also a great way to work on critical elements and basic concepts (see explanations of these terms below).
Books with Lots of Learning to Listen Sounds
The Learning to Listen Sounds are one of the first things a parent learns when introduced to Auditory-Verbal Therapy. Therapists with a caseload of many new listeners repeat these sounds dozens of times a day. While a box full of Learning to Listen Sound toys is great, pairing these sounds and toys with a literacyContinue reading “Books with Lots of Learning to Listen Sounds”
Too Much of a Good Thing: Technology, Apps, and Auditory Verbal Therapy
I love technology. I love the ability it gives me to communicate with people around the world about the miracle of cochlear implants and listening and spoken language. I love that, though Facebook, Twitter, and teletherapy services I am able to reach out to people with hearing loss, parents, and professionals to share information, advice, ideas, and support. When usedContinue reading “Too Much of a Good Thing: Technology, Apps, and Auditory Verbal Therapy”
Social-Emotional Development for Children
As a child grows, so do his abilities to socialize and interact with those around him. When children approach the beginning of formal schooling at about five or six years of age, a whole new world of social experiences opens up for them to explore. How can we help ensure that our children with hearingContinue reading “Social-Emotional Development for Children”
Social-Emotional Development for Infants and Toddlers
When parents learn that their child has a hearing loss, often some of the first questions they ask themselves have to do with their little one’s ability to socialize and be a part of the world — “Will he have friends?” “Will she be able to play sports?” “Will the other children make fun of her?”
Elizabeth A. Rosenzweig 