Auditory Verbal Therapy

Hearing impairment is called the invisible disability but it impacts on every facet of life for a child and their family. Considering the wide ranging impacts of hearing impairment on young children and their parents, the earlier the hearing loss can be diagnosed the better. Early identification and intervention during the critical early learning years, has been proven to be crucial to the child’s development of speech and language. Today, majority of children with hearing impairment have the potential to access all the sounds of spoken language through listening alone, because of new technology developments. “What has happened in the field of hearing is revolutionary”1 Recent scientific advances in amplification and cochlear implant technology can provide great potential listening opportunities to children with profound hearing loss. Because of these improvements in hearing devices, more and more babies and children with hearing loss, have access to sounds as never before. Never before has there been such potential for children who are born deaf or hard of hearing or who acquire deafness in early childhood. Most of these children can learn to listen to their own voices, listen to the voices of others and listen to the sounds of life.2 With this new population of babies and young children, we can work from a developmental and preventive prospective rather than from a remedial and corrective one. “AVT is natural companion of such technology”.4 Crucial to effective early intervention is effective audio logic management. Once a child’s hearing loss is identified, they need to be fitted with appropriate hearing aids as soon as possible so that they can access their residual hearing with the right hearing device. Then the child needs to learn to listen and make use of the hearing signals that they receive.6 You can not just put on hearing aids on a hearing impaired child and expect him to hear and speak. Simply providing hearing devices does not mean the sound will be perceived or interpreted. The child needs to learn to listen and understand through these devices.7 They need to learn that sound has meaning and is related to all that is going on around them. It is important to remember that access to sound does not automatically mean that speech and language will develop.8 Appropriate teaching is essential. “Technology and medical devices only give children access to hearing. Whether the children learn to use this hearing depends on the therapy that they receive, once they have been given this hearing potential” Judith Simser.