Auditory Verbal Therapy

We have provided evidence for the information collated above with a full reference list including research published in peer reviewed journals.

You can find out more on the NDCS website about information about deaf children with additional needs.

Auditory Verbal therapy integrates the development of listening and talking into all aspects of the child’s social, emotional, cognitive, and cultural experiences, so that listening becomes an integral part of his or her life (Estabrooks, Morrison, Maclver-Lux, 2020)²⁹.

AVT supports communications strategies through:

Early support, and equitable access to the support, should be available for all deaf children whether their families wish to communicate with spoken language, sign language or both. It is important that professionals support families, as soon as their child’s deafness is identified, to gain the necessary knowledge, information, and experiences to make fully informed decisions; families and professionals work together to ensure optimal, language-rich environments for communication and language learning and development; and professionals provide early skilled and specialist support.

Rosie Gardner has been a Teacher of the Deaf for 30 years and is based in Northern Ireland.  Rosie completed AVUK’s training and became a LSLS Certified Auditory Verbal Therapist. Read Rosie's story. 

Estelle Gerrett has coached hundreds of parents to develop their children’s listening, talking and social skills at the Hearing House in New Zealand.  In September 2017, Estelle moved to the UK and joined the team of Auditory Verbal practitioners at Auditory Verbal UK.  Here is a Q and A that explores her journey to becoming an AVT.

• Rehabilitation resources by Cochlear
• Information handouts are available from Hearing First
• Medel’s Blog has a range of rehabilitation activity handouts and ideas that focus on listening and spoken language.

Research studies from Auditory Verbal UK, backed up by international research, have found that children’s rate of language development was significantly accelerated from pre to post programme (Hogan, Stokes, White, Tyszkiewicz, & Woolgar, 2008)²⁰; that financial status of the family per se is not a factor that influences spoken language outcomes for families participating in AV therapy (Hogan, Stokes, & Weller, 2010)²¹; that approximately 80% of children who spend at least 2 years on the programme achieve age appropriate language (Hitchins & Hogan 2018)

At the Cochlear™ Listening to Learn Conference (2015) Sarah Hogan DPhil LSLS CertAVT discussed the principles of developing listening and spoken language.  You can view her presentation slides here.     

AV therapy is widely available, and government funded, in Australia, New Zealand and Denmark and a mainstream approach in North America.  There are also AV practitioners working in Argentina, Canada, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Israel, Mexico, Spain, United Kingdom (UK) and more.