HALLOWEEN Playing the Auditory Verbal Way!

Kids love listening, thinking, and learning spoken language with my Halloween Mystery bowl. Give it a try with toddlers through early elementary-aged listeners. It’s great for using all season long. Level it up or down to match the children’s goals.

You Will Need
A clear bowl or container for peeking and spying through the sides 
Small seasonal items - acorns, leaves, pumpkins, Halloween objects, and Dollar Store finds
Dry pinto beans
A swag of artificial autumn leaves to cover the bin and keep the item(s) hidden

Listening and Spoken Language Tips
To encourage auditory learning
- Sit beside the child, on their best hearing side, in a quiet room.
- Remind the child to attend to the auditory information. Point to your ear and say, Listen.
- Speak before the child searches or sees the object. EAR contact before EYE contact.
- Increase or decrease the listening set size of objects to meet the child's goals.
- Develop confidence by playing at a level where the child is successful most of the time.

You Can Target:
Plan ahead. Consider the goals and level up or down the activity.
The child is to find the object that corresponds to the description.

Auditory identification 
Bury an object without the child seeing it.
Remind the child to attend to the auditory information by pointing to your ear. Say, "listen".  
OOooooOO! Boo! OOooooOO! I hear a ghost.
Sing, the Itsy Bitsy Spider.

Following directions and recalling critical elements 
Look for the bat.  
Find the bat then, make it sleep upside down. 
Uncover the skeleton and have it do a monster dance.

Categories
Find something that -
can fly
is scary
has a face
is an insect
is make-believe
grows on trees
is found in a pumpkin patch

Auditory memory
Find the apple. 
Find the scarecrow, the wagon, and the black cat.
Find all the animals except the crow.  

Inferences 
I can walk through walls. I’m white. I like to say “BOO!” Find me.
I am green. I wear a pointy hat. I fly on a broom. Find me.
I am round. I am orange. I sit outside. My first name is Jack. Find me.

Expressive language and descriptive skills 
Give the child a turn to bury a toy and describe it to the other players.

Happy Halloween!

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!

FREE DOWNLOAD

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!…

WALK4HEARING - Chicago 2021

WALK 4 HEARING - Chicago. #WhyWeWalk

I walked...

✧ to help ensure that babies and young children who are deaf or hard of hearing and their families have access to Listening and Spoken Language AV services.

✧ for the families and children have benefited from auditory verbal therapy and have reached their full potentials like Bryn and her Mom.

✧ for Bryn, who is an audiologist today. No Limits!

✧ for the countless families who put their trust in me.

https://www.walk4hearing.org/

10 Sound Test Ling-Madell-Hewitt For Monitoring Listening

The LMH 10 Sound Test For Monitoring Listening
Joan Hewitt AuD FAAA, CCC-A, TOD
Jane Madell Ph.D., FAAA, CCC-A/SLP, LSLS Cert AVT

Hearing technology has improved significantly since the advent of the Ling 6 Sound Test (2006). Joan Hewitt and Jane Madell recommend adding four consonant sounds /n/, /h/, /z/, and /dj/ to better cover the Low, Middle, and High frequencies. The LMH Test screens the low, mid, and high frequencies to get a better idea of a child’s speech perception.

L ➼ Ling - Low
M ➼ Madell - Mid
H ➼ Hewitt - High

The goal of the LMH Test and all speech perception measures is to determine what a child is hearing and what they are missing. The information can then be used by the audiologist to adjust technology settings to provide better access to frequency bands not being perceived. Speech perception and production need to be monitored regularly to identify consistent errors patterns and then management.

Children who are deaf and hard of hearing must have excellent access to sound or hear very well with their technology if they are going to be able to use listening to learn spoken language and develop good literacy skills.

Learn More: 
The HearingHealthMatters.org The LMH Test For Monitoring Listening – Jane Madell and Joan Hewitt

Red Flags: Identifying Barriers to Optimal Auditory Development - Fall 2021. Hearing First Learning Experience  facilitated by Joan HewittAuD FAAA, CCC-A, TOD and Jane MadellPhD, FAAA, CCC-A/SLP, LSLS Cert AVT

Multiple Meaning Words And Children With Hearing Loss

🐸 Toad or Towed?

Homophones are words that sound the same as a toad 🐸 and towed 🛻-🚗 but are spelled differently and have different meanings. There are over 7700 homophones in the English language and many puns, jokes, and cartoons are based on homophones.

🐸 Children with limited vocabularies often struggle to understand and use multiple-meaning words. This negatively impacts their listening and reading comprehension.

🐸 Do you talk about contextually-based vocabulary and metacognitive skills with kids with hearing loss?

In LSL auditory verbal therapy, I offer tips and strategies for parents to help their children understand jokes and why they are funny. This expands the children’s vocabulary and grows flexible language skills like multiple-meaning words, idioms, puns. Memorizing jokes grow auditory memory skills, encourages clear speech when retelling, and builds perspective-taking and social skills.