Auditory Verbal Therapy is designed to teach a child to use the hearing provided by a hearing aid or a cochlear implant for understanding speech and learning to talk. This helps the child as hearing and active listening become an integral part of normal life.
HAC’S expertise helps in detecting hearing problems earlier, enabling the child to start therapy sooner and aiding the child’s learning.
- The philosophy of Auditory-Verbal Therapy (AVT) is for ‘hard of hearing’ children to grow up in a regular learning environment, enabling them to become independent, participating, and contributing citizens in the mainstream society.
- AVT is a parent centered approach that encourages the use of naturalistic conversation and the use of spoken language to communicate.
- AVT is an approach that emphasises 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 emphasise 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.