10 Tips for successful AVT Therapy at home

Below are 10 Tips from Mrs Gowry - the distinguished wife of Singapore Ambassador for Indonesia on how to do a successful home therapy for your hearing impaired child.

1. Teach Reading Early
Even when your child is very young, there is nothing wrong with 'labelling' your furnitures e.g bed, refrigerator, etc. Try to use single words and not phrases under all pictures for younger age children. Read to your child every day.....

2. Teach, don't test
Talk the whole phrases, not only single words. Try create a 'play' with the animal toys (in the barn, in the forest, etc) with different sounds. In your therapy time, speak 1 minute about anything that your child would like to hear.... to exercise his/her listening skill. Children would now if they are being tested so the minute you sense your child lost his cooperation it may be time to switch the approach - play time... without testing... learn new vocab..play drama... without testing.

3. Make it fun
Be creative, make therapy a fun session with new things, use water, food colourings, matches (only when you are around) and candles, play doh, cards. Do things that new to your child to attract his attention. If possible involve siblings to put their ideas for a fun therapy session !

4. Music is essentials
Teach nursery rhymes - use/make cards for each phrases of the song - to put meaning to the sounds, then ask your child to take each related cards after you finish singing that paragraph. Introduce music instruments e.g piano after your child can understand simple instruction e.g around 6-7 years.

5. Set Goals
Set yearly, monthly, weekly and daily goals. Set a higher goal for hearing impaired child than for normal child. Plan ahead daily what specific objective you want to achieve and how would you do it (what's the game, the tools, etc).

6. Wait...wait...wait
Give 3 times to the hearing impaired child before you help him/her. Let him ask for someone to repeat his sentence until 3 times before you help him. Give him 3 chances to speak before you jump in and speak for him.

7. Make Live Hard
Put your child out of their comfort zone e.g change their routine such that they try to fix it up by producing the words e.g asking for the right utensils to eat (spoons), asking for the right pair of socks, etc.

8. Give Confidence
Your child would be different from normal child, but you have to try to minimize him feeling different so that he can be confidence of himself e.g tuck in his implant processor under his shirts, choose the correct colour for the coil to match his hair colour, etc. It is also important to share your view different people needs different things, some needs eyeglasses, some needs braces, and some needs cochlea implant/hearing aids. Let your child order Mc Donalds by themselves...

9. Put aside extra time to communicate
Sometimes with busy schedule either it's work, minding house chores, taking the other siblings to school, etc. you take communication for granted. You talk while you walk, you mumble a lot, that's not enough for your hearing impaired child, especially for the young ones. It is advisable that you set aside an extra time to communicate one on one with him/her. You can talk about your day at work, or ask about his day at nursery/school/home. Also you can talk to prepare him for somethings that new to him, e.g going to supermarket or going down to a friends house. Talk to him about what to expect and what people usually do in that kind of new situations. This way your hearing impaired child does not feel awkward with the new situation.

10. Support from the whole family
If you come from big family - as you would if you origins from Indonesia - spend some time with your big family of how they can support the hearing impaired child. Support can mean sticking to one language at home (to avoid confusion and quicker language imersion for the hearing impaired child), or actively play a role to support AVT therapy principles at home. If you are the only one that practising AVT at home while the other family member (grandpa/grandma, nanny, sibblings) do not even know what AVT is then it is something that you have to work on.