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 Individualized
Auditory-Verbal Sessions
Individualized auditory-verbal sessions
are the foundation of the Parent-Infant Program, and although the
name sounds daunting, the sessions are designed to help you over
the hurdles ahead. This is one of your life's most important jobs;
and we have tools and resources to help you on your way.
In the beginning, you and your baby typically
will meet weekly with your auditory-verbal specialist to learn more
about hearing loss and its impact on your baby and your family.
Along the way, you will also learn strategies for ensuring that
meaningful sounds reach your baby's ears in meaningful ways.
Generally, when your family first enrolls
in the program, you learn about processes and technology--about
hearing evaluations, interpreting audiograms, hearing technology
and the daily care of it, the anatomy of the ear, and causes and
types of hearing loss. The specialist will introduce you to the
listening hierarchy and explore what we know about sound. Most importantly,
the habilitation teams teaches you how to provide abundant, meaningful
listening experiences for your baby, how to make sure that your
baby is near enough to hear you, and how to make sound the first
source of information in your baby's daily routine activities so
that listening becomes a way of life.
Once you understand the role of audition
(hearing and listening) in your baby's life, you begin to learn
about speech and language development. Specialists share information
about pre-symbolic language, the importance of interaction in communication,
receptive and expressive language, the stages of language development,
and other ways to facilitate language in a baby with hearing loss.
Your specialist will work with you to design
activities for language development. With your specialist's help,
you can become familiar with the activities first during the session
and then practice them at home with your baby during everyday activities.
For more information on the Parent Infant
Program, or to schedule an appointment, please contact us by phone
at (210) 821-3718 or by email at
mailto:apip@sunshinecottage.org.
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