Reply to Christy

[Guest guest]

Hi and welcome to the list. We did AV and I thought at first that all AV

therapists did this but now I'm finding they don't. The AV center we went to

always had a theme for the week or lesson. The AVT would ask about our child's

interests and sometimes her interest was a theme and sometimes it was a holiday

or seasonal thing. Or the circus or some special event. We started out the

lesson by playing with little toys/props that went along with the theme. For

the fall theme, we would put the squirrel up in the tree or under the bench.

Etc. Then all the other activities we used things that related to the theme.

So when we did auditory sequencing we'd use an acorn and a leaf and a pumpkin

etc. We also took out books that related to the theme and read them at least

once a day. But EVERYTHING was a game - and my daughter would throw a fit to

" play hearing aid school " ! We had cards with pictures on them, or cards in the

shape of things with colors/stripes/dots etc. Nothing we did was like " therapy "

- it was all games. She didn't like any of the " speech " activities so we would

tie those to something really cool like toys that would flip around in the air.

I rarely had to think anything up on my own because our AVT would give me a

lesson plan and all the cut outs to play the games. So our first therapy

session of each week was spent cutting out and coloring. Some of the games we

played for years. Had to laminate them! There are some good books and good

ideas on websites like the Auditory Verbal International and also the

Clinic correspondence course had lots of good ideas for making things fun, like

for instance making sorting laundry a game using colors, textures etc as the

language and throwing the clothes into different baskets.

Our daughter had graduated from AV by the time she went to kindergarten (at 6)

but when she had trouble with phonics we got one of Kay's modules and if she

heard the sound correctly she got a penny and if she got it wrong I got the

penny back. She ended up with $1.81 in pennies and the ability to read!

in GA