Sadhya Educational Trust was set up in the year 2002, to be a Resource Center for parents of hearing impaired children.
Parents, on suspecting that their child might not be hearing or is not speaking, begin to seek help from various sources. These include pediatricians, ENT Doctors, auditory verbal therapists, audiologists, speech therapists, hearing aid specialists, special schools, counsellors, friends and alternative treatment methods.
At our Center, we aim to provide one on one counselling, auditory verbal therapy and educational support over an extended period of time. It is run by special educators. We refer our parents to any of the above specialists outside and encourage them to learn from various sources.
Auditory Verbal Therapy
Auditory Verbal Therapy is, very simply put, a way of teaching a hearing impaired child to speak!
So, is it new, how is it different, how do you, as a parent, go about it?
Sadhya Educational Trust addresses parents who have such and many more questions.
What is the Auditory-Verbal Approach?
It is a set of principles
which guide a parent to use her child’s residual hearing amplified with hearing aids
or electrically stimulated hearing with cochlear implants,
so as to help her child to listen, process spoken language, and thereby speak.
This approach also assumes that a hearing impaired child’s brain goes through exactly the same steps to acquire spoken language as a hearing child’s brain. So, the earlier the hearing impairment is identified and hearing aids fitted, the better.
Also, after the child starts to wear hearing aids, training on listening needs to be given without which language and speech will NOT develop. Auditory verbal therapy is a set of techniques that a parent follows to enable her child to pick up spoken language.
In case the hearing loss of the child is too severe or profound or the progress of the child is not satisfactory, the option of early cochlear implantation should be explored.
Residual Hearing
Almost all children have some degree of ability to hear left in them – This is called Residual Hearing. However the extent of residual hearing varies – depending exactly on the extent of hearing loss. Only very few children are born totally deaf i.e.with zero residual hearing.
Speech and Hearing Milestones
As a parent, you would like to compare your child’s responses with that of any other hearing child.
What are the stages a Hearing child goes through in his listening journey?
Newborns – startles or jumps when there is a loud sound.
2 months: Turns in the direction of sound. Child responds differently to different tones eg: music, mother’s voice
3-6 months: Babbles and makes speech – like sounds. Communicates by laughing.
8-9 months – Communicates using his voice along with gestures.
12 months – shows understanding of spoken language and tries to make simple words like “amma”, “tata”.
Address:
Sadhya Educational Trust
75, Second Street, Karpagam Ave
600028Chennai
TamilnaduIndia