Auditory Verbal Therapy: Guide

What is Auditory Verbal practice?

Auditory Verbal (AV) therapy is the practice of developing spoken language through listening for children who are deaf.  Children who are born with hearing loss or acquire hearing loss in early childhood have the potential to: develop listening skills, develop intelligible spoken language, enjoy social interactions and achieve academically, the same as their typically hearing peers (Estabrooks, MacIver-Lux & Rhoades, 2016)¹.  The AV approach is a highly specialist, early intervention programme which coaches parents to maximise the use of their child’s residual hearing through the use of optimally-fitted hearing technology (such as hearing aids and cochlear implantts. Parents are coached to maximise their child’s listening and learning, and subsequently their child’s speech and language development.  The AV approach stimulates auditory brain development and enables deaf children with hearing technology to make sense of the sounds relayed by their devices.  Through the child’s play and problem solving, parents are coached in ways to enhance listening and thinking and to model spoken language.  The AV approach is practised by professionals who have been certified as Listening and Spoken Language Specialists (LSLS) and have the designation LSLS Cert AVT or LSLS Cert AV Ed from the Alexander Graham Bell (AG Bell) Academy (Goldberg, Dickson, & Flexer, 2010)².  AV practitioners work with children with mild to profound hearing loss and with and without additional needs.  For all children the earlier the intervention starts the better the prognosis for spoken language development (Hitchins and Hogan, 2018)³.

For a more in depth explanation of AV read more on AVUK's 'What is Auditory Verbal therapy' webpage.

For further information about what a AV session looks like: 

• Auditory Verbal UK Therapy Sessions
• Guided observation of an Auditory Verbal therapy session-events