Week of Acheivements!

This has been a great week of achievements with my clients and their families. I work closely with all of my families in regards to training them how to develop the auditory, speech and language of their child. One of my families in particular, is Spanish speaking and I utilize an interpreter for all of the sessions. (infact I have 6 families whose children are CI users and Spanish is the primary language in the home).
It was quite a challenge in the beginning to have them buy into "immersing" their child in spoken language all the time and making them, the parents, the ones who were responsible for developing their child's auditory/speech/Lang skills.
Some of my families quickly jumped on board, others, well, it took some time and lots of letting them experience in sessions, that they were the natural language models....they had to be told and experience not to be afraid to talk to their child.
I found myself having to explain many times how we hear, what the course of treatment was, how children learn to speak etc.
I had to clarify...yes, your child has a hearing loss, but the CI allows them to hear....but it is not as simple as getting a CI and BING, your child can hear! We, and I stress "WE" (parents, speech therapist, audiologist, teachers and other individuals in that child's life), work as a team....we each do our job, as tough and tedious as it may be at times, to help develop those skills.....ok I got off track.
One of the members of one my Spanish speaking families was experiencing some difficulty with letting go of some "inhibitions" with talking/singing/participating with his child. No matter what I did, showed him, involved him, he resisted. His wife, was very much involved...which was great, but I wanted dad to take ownership of this process. Well, just last week, he was the only one who came into the session alone.
I was expecting him to participate but only with my prompting.
He totally surprised the interpreter and I. He was singing to his child and fully participated with no push from me. I was floored and I wondered why now?, why today?
The session ended and as I was closing up for the night, the interpreter pulled me aside and said the father told her he was embarrassed to sing and talk to his child that way in front of his wife. He was raised that it was the woman's job to sing to their child and so on. He knows it is important, but he is unable to bring himself to "carry on" in a silly manner with his wife present.
Hmmmmm, I thought. I will need to explore this further. More when I see this family next week!

Parents and AV Therapy

Over the years as an educator and speech therapist working with the Deaf/HH, one of the most troubling factors I have experienced is the lack of parental involvement in the educational process, specifically; the speech and language development of their child. I have had the opportunity to work with many parents who are invested in helping their child reach their maximum potential, but there were still many who did not seem to care...even now, with my own practice, I am amazed at how some of the parents of my clients do not feel that they have to do anything.

I wonder why?

I have thought about this for years and I use to question my abilities as a teacher/therapist. Was I doing something wrong? Why did it appear they didn't care? Was I not clear in my delivery of instruction or parent workshops? What was it?

I realized after reflecting upon this question many times, that it wasn't me specifically or the parents...it was both of us. They had to buy into what I was doing or else it was just like Simser said in her article from an unknown author:

Tell me and I will forget
Show me and I may remember
Involve me and I will understand.

If you want to continue to this discussion, please do so.

Auditory-Verbal Intervention: Infants and Toddlers

I am in the middle of my certification process for becoming an Auditory Verbal Therapist. During this time I have been reading many articles that are required readings, one by Judith Simser, who discusses the how and why parents participate in the AV approach as well as the components of the therapy sessions. These therapy sessions are outlined and the techniques are escribed for to help develop listening skills, language , and speech production ( all which is really communication) in infants adn toddlers.
Though this article is dated, 1993, the discussion of AV programs and its practice with children with hearing impairments still holds many theories and practices that are used today to help develop the skills of children with and without hearing losses. What I like about this article is that it stresses the importance of parental involvment, by teaching them how to create an audtiory learning environment for their child to develop spoken language, by non other using listening situations during nateral and meaningful communication.
The author stresses that parents need to be involved...(Involve me and I will understand) instead of the tell me and I will forget approach. Are there any therapist out there that would like to share thier personal experiences with parents being involved or not?