Auditory-Verbal Practice: Toward a Family-centered Approach

This text is structured to provide the reader with the basics of auditory-verbal practices from a historical perspective, including the knowledge to understand how it evolved to current evidence-based practices. Families who learn that one of its members has a hearing loss will experience varied reactions. To best serve these families, practitioners must provide family assessment, support, and information. The book begins by examining the theoretical and practical bases of family therapy models, and the development of a systemic viewpoint that is crucial to practitioners who must evolve to serve more than just the parent-child dyad. Essential family therapeutic strategies that are needed to effectively work with families are presented, and from an objective perspective, current auditory-verbal practices and various ethical issues are examined. Varied family-based intervention models are discussed, with the family-centered approach considered the ideal to which practitioners aspire. The book explains how the merging of auditory-verbal and systemic family therapy strategies can effectively culminate in the implementation of family-based approaches to intervention. Evidence-based strategies embraced by family therapists and family-centered intervention service providers that can be implemented by auditory-verbal practitioners are shared by a cross-cultural collaboration of contributors to this book. The strategies and discussions contained in this comprehensive resource will be of special interest to speech-language pathologists, educational audiologists, and teachers for children with hearing loss, as well as early intervention service providers and social workers.