The Hearing House - enabling deaf children to speak

Typical SessionIn a typical session, Bryden will learn new words with his therapist and his Mum. The session will be based on a theme to allow parents to combine activies or objects with similar vocabularly during the week. It als helps parents to see specific areas of progress. Themes can be chosen to coincide with typical events such as holidays and beach visits.
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Typical Session



Auditory-Verbal Therapy forms the core of The Hearing House Programme. With their parent/s or caregiver, the child attends regular sessions that last up to one hour, Sessions are generally held weekly or fortnightly depending on the needs to the child. During the session, the therapist will work with the child and the parent to develop spoken language.

Auditory-Verbal Therapy techniques include:

  • Pointing to ear and say “Listen”
  • The Waiting strategy
  • Expectation to vocalise on demand
  • Hand cue
  • Modelling with parent
  • Acoustic highlighting
  • Reinforcing position behaviour e.g. good listening
  • Repeat
  • Paraphrase words with a similar meaning
  • Set up for success first time
  • Expanding on child’s utterances
  • Use other linguistic cues for comprehension

It is important that at least one parent attends all Auditory-Verbal Therapy sessions with their child. This is because the parents are actually the main clients of the therapist. They must gain the knowledge and skills required to teach their child to develop language. During the therapy session the therapist will teach the parent/s different techniques that can be used at home to promote language. The Auditory-Verbal Therapist demonstrates, guides and coaches the parents in order to help their child maximise the use of his or her auditory potential. The therapist will also work with the parent to establish targets to be achieved at home e.g. drawing attention to sounds in the environment. This enables the targets to be integrated into everyday language and not only for one hour a week in therapy.

Auditory-Verbal Therapy sessions are held at The Hearing House in Auckland and in Waikato and Bay of Plenty regions. The therapy rooms in Auckland are purpose-built to create an environment conducive to language development in terms of the acoustics and the surroundings. To make the therapy environment a good representation of a natural learning environment, objects and toys found in the child’s home, as well as miniature versions of real objects, are used (Simser, 1993).

There are also strategies that the therapist and parent/s use during therapy to improve the acoustic environment:

  • Parents and/or therapists sitting beside the child on the side of the better ear.
  • Speaking close to the child’s hearing aid(s) and/or cochlear implant microphone.
  • Speaking at regular volume.
  • Minimising background noise.
  • Using natural speech which is repetitive and rich in melody, expression and rhythm.
  • Using acoustic highlighting techniques to enhance the audibility of spoken language (moving from most audible to least audible).

This is important as the Auditory-Verbal approach uses listening as a means for language development.

Throughout the sessions, the therapist will evaluate the progress and skills of both parent/s and child to help the goal setting and planning process. This is important because the parent/s are the main teachers of their child’s language in Auditory-Verbal Therapy and the therapist must rely on the parent/s to effectively work with their child. The therapist will also assess the child in order to determine what goals are appropriate and what language skills should be worked upon. The child will also learn to assess their own voices through listening to the voices of others in order to communicate effectively through spoken language.