Our Services
Services Offered To Families In The Centre:
Auditory-Verbal Practice: Our priority service is to provide weekly therapy sessions using the Auditory-Verbal Practice methodology. This approach emphasises spoken language development through listening only, with optimal amplification, through the application of specific techniques and strategies; which parents learn to apply in their daily lives.
This is done in accordance with the 10 guiding principles of Auditory-Verbal Practice, which are:
- Promote early diagnosis of hearing loss in newborns, infants, toddlers and children, followed by immediate audiologic management and Auditory-Verbal Therapy.
- Recommend immediate assessment and use of appropriate, state-of-the-art hearing technology to obtain maximum benefits of auditory stimulation.
- Guide and coach parents to help their child use hearing as the primary sensory modality in developing spoken language.
- 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.
- Guide and coach parents to create environments that support listening for the acquisition of spoken language throughout the child’s daily activities.
- Guide and coach parents to help their child integrate listening and spoken language into all aspects of the child’s life.
- Guide and coach parents to use natural developmental patterns of auditory, speech, language, cognition and communication.
- Guide and coach parents to help their child self-monitor spoken language through listening.
- Administer on going formal and informal diagnostic assessments to develop individualised Auditory-Verbal treatment plans, to monitor progress and to evaluate the effectiveness of the plans for the child and family.
- Promote education in regular classrooms with typically hearing peers and with appropriate support services from early childhood onwards.
(Adapted from the Principles originally developed by Doreen Pollack, in 1970, and adopted by the AG Bell Academy for Listening and Spoken Language ®, July 26, 2007 – as posted on their website www.agbellacademy.org )
Parent Guidance using the Auditory-Oral Approach: There are children who do better when more visual support is added and hence the Centre also offers this approach at present. This approach encourages the child to use his/her remaining hearing through amplification, combined with speech reading/ natural gestures/ visual cues to develop spoken language, with their parents help.
Service to the profession:
- Supporting the hearing impaired children who are in regular classrooms (inclusive education), as well as training and supporting their teachers.
- Assistance with the Cochlear Implant process; from the time of evaluation, to family support through the process, on the day of the operation and right up to activation and Mapping.
- Assistance and support with routine hearing tests.
Additional support services available to all families at the Centre:
We also serve as a training facility for final year Audiology Students of a local University by providing the lecture module on Auditory-Verbal Practice and also accommodating students to observe the method in practice.
The Centre offers mentorship services for those wishing to follow the one year professional training course in Auditory-Verbal Practice through the University of Stellenbosch and Listening and Spoken Language – South Africa.