Auditory-Verbal Goals as of August 2009

About a month ago we started creating themed units to go along with Aiden's therapy. Along with the theme, his therapists and I choose:

a handful of books to go along with the themed unit

key vocabulary words

two or three songs or nursery rhymes to work on, whether or not they go along with the theme

two or three key functional word phrases (i.e. "All done!" or "Blow (mommy) a kiss!")

This has really helped me stay focused and not feel so overwhelmed with trying to fit it ALL in, and best of all, we are seeing some great responses from Aiden!

I plan on posting our themed unit plans every couple of weeks (and will post our past two in separate posts), as I just LOVE how this community of deaf/hoh moms and dads share in a common goal -to help our children learn to listen and speak. There are some who do not have easily accessible resources and I hope that this is helpful. PLUS, in the same sense, I would LOVE feedback on our plans, including ideas for additional activities, songs, and/or books. These themes will be consistently revisited and the more ideas to work with, the better.

Before I start posting our themed units, I wanted to document, for Aiden's Journey, his current Auditory Verbal Therapy (AVT) goals, which we also work on week after week. These goals do not change until Aiden has them mastered on a continuous basis.

AIDEN'S CURRENT GOALS

AUDITORY HIERARCHY LEVEL

1. Demonstrate a conditioned response to Lings (mastered August 2009 by pointing to his ear whenever a Ling is voiced)

2. Consistently turn to his name (mastered end of July 2009)

3. Respond to requests to imitate words using a hand cue

For example, I hold my hand up to my mouth and voice the /ah/ sound, then place my hand by his mouth and say "Your turn!" Aiden will imitate /m/, /ah/ at this point.

4. Participate in rhymes/finger plays
Since we started focusing on particular songs each week, Aiden will use the correct hand motions for two to three songs based through listening alone. We will continue to work on new songs/nursery rhymes each week.

RECEPTIVE LANGUAGE (Cognition)

1. Recognizes common sounds (e.g. "brrr" for car)

2. Understands up to 20 words

3. Follows one-step commands in routines (i.e. "wash the baby", "Give (mommy) the (spoon)."

I am currently documenting the WASP sounds he recognizes and how many words he understands through listening alone. Aiden is progressing with one step commands, especially since we've started our themed units. For example, Aiden will blow kisses (from our bubble unit), wash the baby, and point to face parts (from our bathtime/body parts unit) when asked to do so without any visual cues.

EXPRESSIVE LANGUAGE

1. Develop an auditory feedback loop by imitating combinations after an auditory-only model (i.e. WASP program which is similar to the learning to listen sounds)

Aiden imitates the airplane (ah), car (brrr), and ice cream (mmm), when he sees the object or picture.

2. Approximate any 1 - 10 high frequncy words in context (e.g. more, up, hi, all done, go)
Aiden's current expressive spoken vocabulary that he uses in context includes:

ahhhh (airplane) - 6/09

maa (more) - beg. 7/09

maaam or ma-ma (mom) - beg. 7/09

da-da or dahd (dad) - end of 7/09

uh-uh (up) - beg. 8/09 (not consistently)

ah da (all done) - beg. 8/09

on (for on, in, and down) - mid. 8/09

buh-buh (bye-bye) - mid. 8/09 (not consistently)

um-um (yum-yum) - mid 8/09

malm (milk) - end 8/09

3. Use jargon (words mixed with sentence intonation)

4. Speech Babble CVCV (consonant-vowel-consonent-vowel)
For example, we use a peg board and pegs to help accomplish this and demonstrate turn taking. I start with a peg up to my mouth and voice, ba-ba-ba, then pass the peg to (dad) who voices the same, ba-ba-ba, who then passes the peg to Aiden who will hopefully imitate the action and sound and then place the peg in the board. We continue on with different vowels (bo-bo-bo or bu-bu-bu etc.) trying to get Aiden to imitate each one. The other day Aiden started this on his own, voicing da-da-da into a cup then passing the cup onto me. He still doesn't imitate much, but we're working on it.