Encourage Flexible Language Learning in Children Who Are Deaf and Harding Of Hearing

When is the best time to buy a trampoline? Spring time.
Last week, I began my therapy sessions by showing the kids a metal spring or coil. I received puzzled looks and questions. Auditory Verbal therapy is conversational so together we talked, listened, and learned, about multiple meanings of the word spring. Little ones heard about the season of spring while older listeners learned additional meanings.

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Celebrating International Cochlear Implant Day

 
 

At age seven, hearing aids were not enough so, Nathan received cochlear implants. Now at seventeen, he is the first speaker in this video for the A. G. Bell’s Loft Program. It’s a quick clip!
Click the video below. Listen!

Today, Nathan's speech and language abilities are a result of his family's unwavering commitment to listening and spoken language, his cochlear implant hearing technology, years of our auditory verbal sessions, all the dedicated professionals on his team, and Nathan's motivation and work ethic.

Nathan is an overcomer! He has a great personality and is advanced in academics, literacy, and social skills. He is on the Competitive Speech Team and in Honors French in high school. Nathan will soon receive the Eagle Scout award the highest rank in Boy Scouts.

By sharing Nathan's story, I want to help raise awareness about cochlear implants. It’s estimated that over 700,000 people around the world have a cochlear implant, there are many more who could still benefit from this life-changing technology. Celebrating CI day is an opportunity to let the wider community know about CIs and hearing loss in general.

 

Polar Bear, Silly Directions and Listening and Spoken Language Therapy Plans

 
 

What are your LSL therapy plans for this week?

 
 

We are reading, listening, and learning along with the animals in the classic story "Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear?”, then playing one of my favorites the Silly Directions game?

Silly Directions is an active listening and spoken language game for children of many ages and stages that can be leveled up or down to meet their needs. This game gets kids listening, moving, thinking, and learning.

The directions are designed to be fast, fun, and effective for children who are deaf and hard of hearing and for others who can benefit from practicing listening skills. Kids can expand their receptive language, increase their auditory working memory and processing skills while being engaged and active. 

This game can help children learn to: 

  • follow auditory directions

  • recall and process directions

  • 'chunk' auditory information

  • remember critical elements in sequential order

  • use compound and more complex sentences 

  • ask for clarification if they have trouble remembering

  • expand vocabulary:

Silly Directions can target:

- Similes - Children learn comparisons with similes. Similes use the words like or as to compare things —“Arch your back LIKE a cat.”

- Adjectives - Children hear and build vocabulary while naming the objects. They learn the adjectives that describe the objects — a BOTTLE of ketchup, a MONARCH butterfly, a GARDEN hose…

- Body Parts - Children hear and expand the names of body parts — forehead, waist, chin…

Look inside the Silly Directions Game

 
 
 
 
 
 

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.