Auditory Verbal Therapy: Guide

AV spoken language outcomes

Research studies from Auditory Verbal UK have found that children’s rate of language development was significantly accelerated from pre to post programme (Hogan, Stokes, White, Tyszkiewicz, & Woolgar, 2008)²⁰; that financial status of the family per se is not a factor that influences spoken language outcomes for families participating in AV therapy (Hogan, Stokes, & Weller, 2010)²¹; that approximately 80% of children who spend at least 2 years on the programme achieve age appropriate language (Hitchins & Hogan 2018)³; and 1 in 2 children with additional needs, who spend at least 2 years on the programme, achieve age appropriate language (Hitchins & Hogan, 2018)³.  You can view some of AVUK’s publications here.

Research from around the world shows that children in an AV therapy programme: graduate with no gap between their chronological age and equivalent language age and develop spoken language in line with their hearing peers (Dornan, Hickson, Murdoch & Houston, 2007²², 2009²³, Fulcher, Purcell, Baker, & Munro, 2012²⁴; Rhoades & Chisolm, 2000²⁵); progress at the same rate for listening, spoken language, self-esteem, reading and mathematics as a matched group of children with normal hearing (Dornan, Hickson, Murdoch, Houston, & Constantinescu, 2010)²⁶; demonstrate advanced spoken language skills relative to other children who had received standard early intervention (Percy-Smith et al., 2017)²⁷.

Hogan and Lim (2016)²⁸ review evidence and explore how much it influences a broad understanding of AV.

Research from the US and Australia shows that children in an Auditory Verbal therapy programme develop spoken language in line with their hearing peers^39,40,41,42, and progress at the same rate for listening, spoken language⁴³, self-esteem, reading and mathematics as a matched group of children with normal hearing⁴⁴. First Voice, a consortium of Australasian Early Intervention Centres (of which Auditory Verbal UK is an international member) collate and publish spoken language outcomes for graduates of Auditory Verbal programmes. The First Voice consortium has published the Sound Outcomes report for 2021 in which data was pooled over five Auditory Verbal programmes. Reporting on 186 children with hearing loss who graduated from First Voice centres in 2021, 83% of graduate children with hearing loss alone (i.e. without additional difficulties) achieved a standard score within or above the average range for typically hearing children⁴⁵. The report also details a cost benefit analysis from 2019: the benefit to cost ratio for the community investment was approximately 4:1, a figure replicating Auditory Verbal UK’s own cost benefit analysis in 2016⁴⁶.

In 2022, the Danish government announced that AV therapy would be included as part of the care pathway for all children up to five years of age with permanent hearing loss. This followed a five-year, government funded project to investigate the effectiveness of the AV approach in a national intervention study for the families of children with a permanent hearing loss aged from birth to five years. Aiming for the goal of age-appropriate speech-language skills, the evaluation reports that 84% of the children achieved age-appropriate spoken language after three years of AV therapy. The figure was previously only 30%. ^x75

For more information on spoken language outcomes:

AV spoken language outcomes (continued).