Auditory-Verbal Approach
In a welcoming, home like environment, Cora Barclay Centre's Early Intervention (EI) team offers family-centred Auditory-Verbal Therapy (AVT) to the families of children who are deaf or hearing impaired.
Auditory-Verbal Therapy (AVT) facilitates optimal acquisition of spoken language through listening by newborns, infants, toddlers, and young children who are deaf.
AVT is internationally rated as the best method for children with hearing loss to achieve fluent spoken language. AVT aims for the child with hearing loss to use listening and spoken language as his/her primary mode of communication and be included in mainstream education from the earliest age possible.
AVT promotes early diagnosis, one-on-one therapy, and state-of-the-art audiological management and technology.
Parents and caregivers actively participate in therapy. Through guidance, coaching, and demonstration, parents become the primary facilitators of their child's spoken language development. Ultimately, parents and caregivers gain confidence that their child can have access to a full range of academic, social, and occupational choices throughout life.
AVT must be conducted in adherence to all 10 Principles of Auditory-Verbal Therapy (AG Bell, 2001).
Principles of Auditory-Verbal Therapy Education
- Promote early diagnosis of hearing loss in newborns, infants, toddlers, and young children, followed by immediate audiological management and Auditory-Verbal therapy.
- Recommend immediate assessment and use of appropriate, state-of-the-art hearing technology to obtain maximum benefits of auditory stimulation.
- 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.
- Guide and coach caregivers to become the primary facilitators of their child's listening and spoken language development through active consistent participation in individualized Auditory-Verbal therapy.
- Guide and coach parents¹ to create environments that support listening for the acquisition of spoken language throughout the child's daily activities.
- Guide and coach caregivers to help their child integrate listening and spoken language into all aspects of the child's life.
- Guide and coach caregivers to use natural developmental patterns of audition, speech, language, cognition, and communication.
- Guide and coach caregivers to help their child self-monitor spoken language through listening.
- 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.
- Promote education in regular schools with peers who have typical hearing and with appropriate services from early childhood onwards.
Adapted from AG Bell Website. 2001.