What are the Goals of the Auditory-Verbal practice?

One of the goals of Auditory-Verbal practice is “to integrate hearing into the child’s personality” (Pollack, 1981). Children are taught to develop hearing so that listening becomes automatic. Auditory-Verbal practice is a way of life for families, rather than a “technique” that is administered a few hours a week. Lip reading or speechreading is not taught, but develops naturally. This way children use all their five senses. Then in the more difficult listening situations of everyday life, children are equipped to make the best use of listening in combination with all other visual cues available. We believe that sign language and fingerspelling interferes with a child’s ability to develop listening skills because visual clues compete with auditory clues for the child’s attention. Sign language cam be learned at any age if desired, but the development of hearing and listening skills must occur by age six or the opportunity to use one’s hearing may be lost forever.

Another goal of Auditory-Verbal practice is mainstreaming, or full inclusion in a regular classroom. We speak as we hear and children will imitate what they hear. Therefore, they need to be exposed to normal language and speech models. Children with hearing loss are never grouped in classes with other children with hearing loss, so the language models available to them are more natural and normal. Children who are at least two years of age are encouraged to enroll in neighborhood preschool programs with normally hearing preschoolers. This way a child with a hearing loss learns how to function as a hearing child. They learn to communicate effectively with normally hearing children. Normal speech and language models and higher expectation levels are provided in regular preschool and grade school programs. Integration with hearing children leads to assimilation and the child with the hearing loss begins to function with relative comfort in our normally hearing community.