One of the early intervention options for infants, toddlers, and young children who are fit with hearing aids or for those patients who receive unilateral or bilateral cochlear implants is the Auditory-Verbal Therapy (AVT) approach. AVT is an auditory-based teaching approach with significant family involvement. The goal of auditory-based teaching approaches for children with hearing loss, is to teach the family how their child can in fact “learn to listen”; and through learning to listen, develop spoken language.

 

Auditory-Verbal therapy (AVT) promotes early diagnosis, one-on-one therapy, and state-of-the-art audiologic 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 (professional) choices throughout life.

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Principles of Auditory-Verbal Therapy

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• AVT is a parent centred approach that encourages the use of naturalistic conversation and the use of spoken language to communicate.

• AVT is an approach that emphasizes the use of residual hearing to help children learn to listen, process verbal language, and to speak.

• AVT Maximizes the use of the child’s aided residual hearing for the detection of sound.

• The earliest possible identification of hearing loss with immediate fitting with amplification, as well as prompt intervention helps to reduce the extent of language delays commonly associated with hearing impairment.

• AVT is based on teaching parents, during their child’s individual therapy sessions to emphasize residual hearing and interact with their child using the auditory verbal approach.

• AVT teaches the child to develop self-monitoring skills. The child learns to listen to his/her own voice as well as to others during natural conversations thereby promoting natural voice quality.

• AVT follows a logical and critical set of guiding principles. The parent, therapist, and child engage in play activities that teach the child to use his or her amplified residual hearing to learn auditory-verbal communication like children with normal hearing.

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