Auditory Verbal Therapy (AVT)
Does your child have hearing differences? Do you want him/her to learn to listen and talk? If so, then Auditory-Verbal Therapy (AVT) may be the right fit for your family. AVT is a listening and spoken language (LSL) approach that helps newborns, infants, toddlers, and young children develop speech and language skills through listening using their residual hearing in addition to consistent use of hearing aid(s) and/or cochlear implant(s). AVT is a parent centered approach in which the parent(s) and AV therapist work together during therapy sessions to develop goals, learn strategies, and ask/answer questions so that, ultimately, the child can develop listening skills and intelligible spoken language similar to typical hearing peers.
Our Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) Team:
Director of DHH Team: Bari Pham , AuD
Auditory Verbal Therapists (Ft. Worth) Paige Faulder, MS, CCC-,SLP, LSLS Cert. AVT
(Southlake) Noelle Montague, MS, CCC-SLP, LSLS Cert . AVT/Lead
DHH Team Members: (Coppell) Daniela Centeno, MS, CCC-SLP, Denise Cardenas, MS, CCC-SLP, Morgan Rothstein, MS, CCC-SLP (Hurst) Karen Pieters MS, CCC-SLP, Vy Phan MS, CCC-SLP (Ft. Worth) Hayley Jordan MS, CCC-SLP (Frisco) Annie York MS, CCC-SLP
FOR CHILDREN WITH MILD TO PROFOUND HEARING DIFFERENCES
A parent coaching therapy style to teach children who have hearing differences, to listen and talk.
We use a child’s residual hearing combined with amplification to stimulate the brain and grow listening skills.
AVT IS A TEAM APPROACH
We work with the parents, the audiologists, the ENTs and surgeons to establish a plan of care that best suits the child’s current abilities and the family’s goals for communication.
LISTENING AND SPOKEN LANGUAGE
Emphasizes teaching the families strategies and techniques to strengthen the child’s listening skills in a natural and meaningful way that translates into everyday life.
Listening and Spoken Language Specialists Certified Auditory-Verbal Therapists (LSLS Cert. AVTs) follow a core set of principles to ensure quality care of the child. The principles are as follows:
01. Promote early diagnosis of hearing loss in newborns, infants, toddlers, and young children, followed by immediate audiologic management and auditory-verbal therapy.
02. Recommend immediate assessment and use of appropriate, state-of-the-art hearing technology to obtain maximum benefits of auditory stimulation.
03. Guide and coach parents to help their child use hearing as the primary sensory modality in developing listening and spoken language.
04. Guide and coach parents to become the primary facilitators of their child’s listening and spoken language development through active consistent participation in individualized auditory-verbal therapy.
05. Guide and coach parents to create environments that support listening for the acquisition of spoken language throughout the child’s daily activities.
New to Monkey Mouths?
1. Call us at (817) 479-7019 to schedule an evaluation, where a therapist determines whether your child would benefit from therapy.
2. Moving forward, the first therapy appointment is scheduled, and 3- and 6-month goals are set for your child. We discuss progress and goals together, and your family is integrated along every step of the therapy journey.
“My family will be forever blessed by using Monkey Mouths.”
06. Guide and coach parents to help their child integrate listening and spoken language into all aspects of the child’s life.
07. Guide and coach parents to use natural developmental patterns of audition, speech, language, cognition, and communication.
08. Guide and coach parents to help their child self-monitor spoken language through listening.
09. Administer ongoing formal and informal diagnostic assessments to develop individualized auditory-verbal treatment plans, to monitor progress and to evaluate the effectiveness of the plans for the child and family.
10. Promote education in regular schools with peers who have typical hearing and with appropriate services from early childhood onwards.
(Adapted from the Principles originally developed by Doreen Pollack, 1970)
(Adapted by the AG Bell Academy for Listening and Spoken Language®, July 26, 2007)
At Monkey Mouths, we utilize these core principles with the goal of helping your child develop listening and spoken language skills to their highest potential. A treatment plan is developed based on the goals of the family as well as the specific needs of the child. Parents actively participate in therapy sessions to ensure successful carryover of AV strategies in other environments.
“Through AVT, many of these children learn to listen to their own voices, listen to the voices of others, and listen to the other exciting sounds of life. By learning to listen, they learn to talk. By learning to talk, they learn to engage in meaningful spoken conversations with their parents, siblings, and friends. While the children learn to listen and talk, the auditory and language centers of the brain expand to support the infrastructure for reading, writing, and use of electronic media. Consequently, many of the children can be fully included in regular preschools and grow up enjoying the abundance of social and academic freedoms of life in the 21st century” (Estabrooks, Maclver-Lux, & Rhoades, 2016).