Rationale For Auditory-Verbal Practice

• Knowing how to listen and speak precedes learning how to read and write. (Robertson & Flexor, 1990)
  
  
• Children whose hearing losses are identified by six months of age demonstrate significantly better language scores than children identified after six months of age,[Christine Yoshinaga-Itano, Allison L. Sedey, Diane K. Coulter, and Albert L. Mehl, “Language of Early- and Later-identified Children With Hearing Loss”, Pediatrics 1998 102: 1161-1171] .
  
  
• The earlier a hearing loss is identified, the more likely it is that interventions such as hearing aids and cochlear implants can allow a child to remain in a mainstream educational program, if their parents choose.
  
  
• A recent study on cochlear implants demonstrated that special education in elementary school is less necessary when children have had “greater than two years of implant experience” before starting school. These children are “mainstreamed at twice the rate or more of age-matched children with profound hearing loss who do not have implants.”[ Howard W. Francis, Mary E. Koch, Robert Wyatt, John K. Niparko, “Trends in Educational Placement and Cost-Benefit Considerations in Children With Cochlear Implants,” Archives of Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery Vol. 125 (1999): pp 499 – 505.]