Principles of AV Therapy

Auditory-Verbal Therapy:

• Is a world-recognised approach for educating children who are hearing impaired.
• Is different from other approaches to teaching children with a hearing impairment. The Auditory-Verbal approach emphasises hearing rather than vision.
• Believes that children who are deaf can be taught to listen, understand language and speak, thus enabling them to live enriched lives in the hearing and speaking world.
• Is also beneficial for school-aged children who are hearing impaired as it facilitates their integration into the academic community.
• Supports the option for children with all degrees of hearing impairment to develop the ability to listen and speak within his/her own family and community.

Due to amazing advances in medical technology, almost all children with a hearing impairment can learn how to listen using powerful hearing aids or cochlear implants. Auditory-Verbal Therapy teaches these children how to maximise their listening skills in order to develop age-appropriate spoken language. The aim of Auditory-Verbal Therapy is for the children to be integrated into their regular community and local school with appropriate speech and language skills.

The Auditory-Verbal approach considers parents/caregivers as essential team members whose contribution to their child's development is invaluable. Parents/caregivers are the primary models for listening and spoken language development. The therapist's role is to teach the parent/caregivers how to fulfill this role to the utmost benefit for their child. Parents/caregivers learn to provide a positive learning environment in which their child learns through listening.

Definition of an Auditory-Verbal Therapist

An Auditory-Verbal Therapist is first qualified as one or more of the following:

• audiologist
• speech pathologist
• audiologist

Therapists receive advanced, specialised instruction and practical experience through university courses, specific Auditory-Verbal centres and/or from certified Auditory-Verbal clinicians. They may be certified by the AG Bell Academy for Listening and Spoken Language.

Auditory-Verbal Therapists seize the auditory component of any life experience and promote and develop the use of sound for speaking and understanding spoken language. They also embrace the knowledge that children are motivated to learn language most effectively when playing and interacting with family who love them.

To obtain information on becoming a Certified Auditory-Verbal Therapist ®, please visit the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing

Maria (left), whose loss was identified early, has the opportunity to learn to listen and talk like Jessika-Lee (right). Jessika-Lees's family says she doesn't stop talking!

Principles of Auditory-Verbal Practice*

• Promote early diagnosis of hearing loss in newborns, infants, toddlers and 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 parents to help their child use hearing as the primary sensory modality in developing spoken language without the use of sign language or emphasis on lipreading.
• Guide and coach parents† to become the primary facilitators of their child's listening and spoken language development through active, consistent participation in individualised Auditory-Verbal therapy.
• Guide and coach parents to create environments that support listening for the acquisition of spoken language throughout the child's daily activities.
• Guide and coach parents to help their child integrate listening and spoken language into all aspects of the child's life.
• Guide and coach parents to use natural devevlopmental patterns of audition, speech, language, cognition and communication.
• Guide and coach parents to help their child self-monitor spoken language through listening.
• Administer ongoing formal and informal diagnostic assessments to develop individualised Auditory-Verbal treatment plans, to monitor progress and to evaluate the effectiveness of the plans for the child and their family.
• Promote educations in regular classrooms with typical hearing peers and with appropriate support services from early childhood onwards.

(Adapted from the principles developed by Doreen Pollack, 1970)

* An Auditory-Verbal Practice requires all 10 principles.

†The term "parents" also includes grandparents, relatives, guardians and any caregivers who interact with the child.

Adopted by the AG Bell Academy for Listening and Spoken Language®, January 11 2006.

©AG Bell Academy for Listening and Spoken Language®