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Q. You use the term “Auditory-Verbal” in the 2nd Edition of “Speech and the Hearing-Impaired Child.” How does it differ from any other form of therapy or education for children who are hearing-impaired? A. Auditory-Verbal practice utilizes audition as the primary sensory modality in speech perception, speech production and spoken language. In most other programs, vision (to encourage lip-reading skills) is usually considered the more important, and audition is used as a supplement to it. Auditory-Verbal practice applies most effectively to work with infants and young children. It may also be used to enhance previously acquired spoken language communication among older school-aged children and adults. It can provide the majority of children with the skills required for them to benefit from education in regular classes alongside their normally hearing peers. In the habilitation and education of hearing-impaired children, as in the majority of health- or education-related professions there are certain things on which most agree and certain others have distinctly different views. Thus virtually all those concerned with hearing-impaired children advocate and support programs for the detection of deafness in early infancy. They agree that the first few years of life are optimal for learning spoken language. For this reason virtually all advocate and support programs for the detection of deafness in newborn infants and programs for the early medical diagnosis and, when appropriate, medical or surgical treatment of hearing loss as well as early and continuing audiological evaluations. Auditory-verbal practitioners are deeply committed to all the following issues the extent to which they are embraced by traditional programs: • The earliest possible use of appropriate auditory technology (selection, adjustment and maintenance of hearing aids and/or cochlear implants. • The education, support and guidance of parents; • Counseling and support for regular school teachers to ensure the successful inclusion of children who are hearing-impaired into the whole range of activities enjoyed by their hearing peers in regular schools; • One-on-one teaching to meet the needs of individuals; • Avoidance of the simultaneous use of sign language, an obstacle to the fluent acquisition of spoken language through hearing; • Formal and informal assessment evaluation of the children’s progress in acquiring auditory skills, speech, receptive and expressive language and vocabulary. • Recognition that spoken language can best be acquired through hearing because it is the only sensory pathway through which all of its acoustic features can be perceived. Apart from sharing many general goals with other types of programming, there are ten distinct principles underlying auditory-verbal practice as approved by Auditory-Verbal International (AVI) are unique to AVI and part of the organization’s charter. They are as follows: a. Using audition as the primary sensory modality in developing speech perception and spoken language communication. b. 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. c. Preventing or reducing children’s unnecessary reliance on lip-reading, this in order to develop or enhance listening skills. d. Using the proprioceptive senses as a supplement to audition in speech acquisition. e. Integrating talking and listening skills into all aspects of children’s lives and personalities f. The practitioner’s consistent use of clearly produced, normal speech patterns under acoustic conditions that provide signal to noise ratios on the order of 30 dB. This is 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. g. "Fostering extensive interactions in the regular educational environment with their normally hearing peers." h. Participation to the fullest possible extent in normal family life. i. Inclusion in regular neighborhood schools from early childhood onwards, rather than attendance in self-contained special schools. j. Daily interaction with hearing peers in order that they may learn normal patterns of speech, language and social behavior. Previous Page