Listen and Talk Programs
EARLY INTERVENTION SERVICES teach families to meet the developmental needs of their child with hearing loss. Our EIS providers act as coaches, helping families understand the process of listening and talking in a natural, playful way. Through modeling and practice they learn to help their child respond to and interpret sounds, building a foundation upon which spoken language learning will continue throughout their entire life.
BLENDED PRESCHOOL AND PRE-K CLASSES provide children with hearing loss the skills necessary to fully participate in general education settings. Our classrooms also offer children with normal hearing the opportunity to learn about diversity while they are taught by highly qualified teachers and assistants in a language-rich environment.
INDIVIDUAL AUDITORY-VERBAL THERAPY provides input, practice, and guidance to parents and their child about ways to integrate listening and spoken language into all aspects of daily life. These family centered sessions follow an Auditory-Verbal Therapy model emphasizing listening and spoken communication.
CONSULTATIONS provide expertise in Listening and Spoken Language for families and schools through consultative services, including but not limited to Individualized Education Program (IEP) reviews, IEP development, classroom observations, functional listening evaluations, speech and language assessments, professional development, and ongoing monitoring and support of children placed in neighborhood schools.
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND TRAINING opportunities help our staff share their expertise with partners in the community to help strengthen services for children with hearing loss.
AUDIOLOGY services ensure that our on-site students keep hearing as well as possible so they can continue their listening and language development. The Harry Levinson Audiology Suite enables our audiologists to test hearing sensitivity, document a child’s ability to understand speech in quiet and noise, and perform minor repairs of the child’s listening devices.
Recent Successes and Current Challenges
SUCCESS - Listen and Talk continues to strive for sustainability through prudent business practices and collection of program fees. We have made consistent progress towards self-reliance over the past several years with an increasing percentage of revenue coming from service fees (62% - 2012) versus grants (35% - 2012). We are looking at how we can do our work differently without compromising quality. This year we launched Virtual Home Visit, an efficient telehealth model of service delivery that allows our early intervention providers to reach families regardless of where they live. Approximately one-third of the families we serve are receiving services through Virtual Home Visit for all or a portion of their services.
OPPORTUNITY - Listen and Talk's 11 year old Soundfield systems need to be updated. A Soundfield system consists of a wireless microphone and one or more loudspeakers which amplify the teacher’s voice around their classroom. As a result, students hear and understand the teacher’s directions more easily, which in turn leads to improved student performance and a happier, stronger voiced teacher.
Specific Soundfield system benefits for the children we serve:
- Improved sentence recognition ability
- Increased attention, interaction, and participation
- Quicker acquisition of reading, writing, and numeracy skills
- Easier deciphering of language in early learning years
- Better understanding of teacher for English language learners
Each Phonak Dynamic Soundfield system costs $2,331. We need 4 systems to outfit all of our classrooms. 100% of GiveBig donations will support the purchase of Phonak Dynamic Soundfield systems. 100% of GiveBig donations will be matched dollar for dollar by a private family foundation.