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Auditory-Verbal Therapy: A Distinctive Approach
The Auditory-Verbal approach - pioneered in the United States by Helen Beebe and Doreen Pollack - has enabled thousands of severely and profoundly deaf children to become independent speaking and hearing adults.
Sign language and speechreading are not taught in Auditory-Verbal therapy. With hearing aids or a cochlear implant, coupled with intensive training in listening, a child is stimulated to listen. Parents and Beebe therapists will spend years working together, developing language skills and refining the speech of the child through lessons and exercises at home.
The Auditory-Verbal approach is based upon a logical and critical set of guiding principles which enable children who are hearing impaired to learn to use even minimal amounts of residual hearing through amplification technology (e.g.,binaural hearing aids and acoustically tuned earmolds, FM units, cochlear implants) to listen, to process verbal language, and to speak.
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The goal of the Auditory-Verbal approach is for children who are hearing impaired to grow up in typical learning and living environments and to become independent, participating citizens in mainstream society. The Auditory-Verbal philosophy supports the option for children with all degrees of hearing impairment to develop the ability to listen and to use verbal communication within their own family and community. |
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Auditory-Verbal: Guiding Principles
- To work toward the earliest possible identification of hearing impairment in infants and young children, ideally in the newborn nursery.
- To conduct an aggressive program of audiologic management.
- To seek the best available sources of medical treatment and amplification technology for the child who is hearing impaired as early as possible.
- To help the child understand the meaning of any sounds heard, most significantly spoken language, and teaching the child's parents how to make sound meaningful to the child all day long.
- To help the child learn to respond and use sound in the same way and in the same manner children with typical hearing learn by using sound.
- To support the child's parents as the most effective first models for their children.
- To help the child develop an auditory feedback system so that the child will monitor his/her own voice and will work to match what he/she says with what he/she hears others say.
- To know how children with typical hearing develop sound awareness, listening, language, and intellect and use this knowledge to help children who are hearing impaired learn new skills.
- To observe and evaluate the child's development in all of these areas and to modify the child's teaching program as he/she progresses.
- To help children who are hearing impaired participate educationally and socially by supporting them in typical education classes, when appropriate.
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A Long-term Process
Spoken language development is a long-term process which cannot be accomplished merely in a few months of Auditory-Verbal teaching for profoundly deaf children anymore than it can for children with normal or typical hearing.
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| The clinician must be mindful of the child's development as measured against his/her time in habilitation. A child is expected to develop an auditory feedback system of his/her own speech. He/she develops self-monitoring skills by constantly comparing his/her own verbal output with the auditory input of his/her environmental models. It is essential that this environmental model be socially, linguistically, and acoustically correct.
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Parental Involvement
Parents must be actively involved in order for an auditory-verbal approach to be successful. Initially, parents may be emotionally devastated by the diagnosis of their child's hearing loss but become well-adjusted as a result of the counseling, education, and guidance they receive through participation in therapy sessions and The Jump Start program.
Therapists partner with families, permitting both parent and child to develop the necessary skills at optimal rate according to their individual needs and goals. Networking with well-adjusted, more experienced parents provide new families with inspiration, motivating them to work toward significant milestones with their child.
Behind each child who achieves high levels of Auditory-Verbal communication stands highly motivated parents who provide a rich environment - rich in love, acceptance, security, and emotional support -- wide ranging in experience and abundant in stimulation that fosters all areas of growth.
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