DIY - A Listening Box - A Classic Auditory Verbal Resource

A LISTENING BOX is a must-have tool if you guide families of young children who are deaf and hard of hearing. I first made a Listening Box while learning from Doreen Pollack in her video-tapped training lessons as an undergraduate student at the University of Akron Speech and Hearing Clinic.

The auditory premises I learned from Doreen remain true today. Doreen Pollack established the Acoupedic Program in Denver for teaching listening and spoken language to children who were deaf and hard of hearing. This was later named Auditory-Verbal Therapy and today it is referred to as Listening and Spoken Language Therapy.

A Listening Box is a classic Listening and Spoken Language Auditory Verbal activity for beginner listeners. A Listening Box holds sound-making toys, objects, and toy instruments in order to present the sound through hearing first. The sound-making objects are hidden behind the Listening Box’s lid which little kids love. This Learning To Listen activity helps a child develop sound awareness and attach meaning to speech and environmental sounds.

DIY In one of my early intervention auditory verbal sessions with the parents or caregivers we make a DIY Listening Box together either face to face or in a teletherapy session. It gives us time to chat when I can offer important information about sound awareness and listening and spoken language outcomes.

Try This Easy Listening and Spoken Language Snack Activity For Autumn

Cooking provides authentic opportunities for children to listen, follow directions, and develop self-help skills. An enormous amount of learning takes place during daily routines of preparing food, cooking, and cleaning up.

An irresistible Autumn snack of candy corn and peanuts is the perfect combination of salty and sweet. It’s so simple to make with kids on your caseload or at home!

FIRST - Confirm no one has peanut allergies!

You’ll need a bag of candy corn and a can of salted peanuts.
In a medium bowl add the peanuts and the candy corn and mix. Ta-Dah!

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This handout contains targets and ideas for involving children in food preparation, cooking, washing dishes, and cleaning up. It is designed for families and therapists/teachers guiding and coaching caregivers.

TARGET IDEAS FOR:

LITTLE LISTENERS - Listen and learn while pouring, mixing, tasting, and eating this snack.

PRESCHOOLERS - Talk about opposites.
Peanuts & Candy Corn are salty - sweet | crunchy - chewy | brown - colorful | bag - can.

SCHOOL AGE - Brainstorm compare & contrast.
Peanuts and candy corn are BOTH snacks.
Peanuts come in a can WHILE Candy Corn is sold in a plastic bag.
Keep it going!…

Auditory Working Memory and The 3 T’s: Thankful, Turkey, Teletherapy

I’m THANKFUL for this low-prep yet rich listening and following directions activity for teletherapy. Here are step-by-step instructions to make the best hand turkeys that can be leveled up or down for kiddos of all ages in your caseload. 

Ask the parents to have available a sheet of white computer paper and crayons (i.e., brown, red, purple, orange, green). I begin by modeling tracing my hand on my whiteboard so the child can all see well over the computer screen. I talk about how I firmly place one hand, palm down and fingers spread apart, on the sheet of white computer paper. Starting on one side of my wrist, I trace with the black crayon around my hand until I reach the other side of my wrist.

Next, I give this simple direction: "Trace your hand like you saw me do with your black crayon." This is always the first step. I ask the child to show me their paper up once finished. A parent or caregiver can help ensure the child is on the right track and has a general outline or turkey shape.

At this point in the activity, the directions depend on the listening and language level of the child. They can be one-step, one-step with descriptors, two-step, and more complex directions and descriptions. One-step directions are easy to think of but here are ideas for more complex instructions.

1. Using the black pencil or crayon, draw a line from the start point to the endpoint to finish the body of the turkey.

2. Draw another line from the bottom of each finger to the next to create the feathers.

3. Color a small black circle near the end of the thumb to make the turkey’s eye.

4. Below the eye, on the outside of the thumb, draw two ovals that make the gobbler.

5. On the tip of the thumb, draw one triangle for the beak.

6. In the middle of the turkey, draw the wing.

7. Draw two straight lines at the bottom of the turkey to make legs.

8. At the end of each line, draw three more little lines for the toes.

9. Using the brown, red, purple, orange, green crayons, color each of the fingers a different color.

10. Color the rest of the body of the turkey brown.

11. Using the orange crayon, color the beak.

12. Color the gobble red.

You may want to have the listener add grass under the turkey, a tree behind the turkey, a sun in the sky, falling leaves, or a pilgrim hat on the turkey.

We then show each other our turkeys. I draw my turkey off-screen before the session. We compare and contrast our hand turkeys fostering thinking and conversational skills. To extend the activity, let the child take a turn being the teacher and give directions to a parent, sibling, or friend.

Ten Little Native Americans

Last week in therapy I began using Thanksgiving as a theme in some of my AVT sessions. My little listeners enjoy the song, Ten Little Indians while it may not be considered politically correct it is a wonderful repetitive song that I have used for countless years. We sing and shout, "Woo woo woo, Woo woo woo" which is great for early sound awareness and imitation.

Together, we take the Native Indian boys and girls in and out of the teepee which is a catalyst for many listening and spoken language activities and goals.

One little, two little, three little Indians

Four little, five little, six little Indians

Seven little, eight little, nine little Indians

Ten little Indian boys/girls.