Babies and Toddlers

Where to start when your baby has a hearing loss?

The Auditory Learning Centre will guide and teach you on how to develop your child’s listening skills and ability to communicate using spoken language.

Your particular programme and individual therapy sessions will be based on the unique needs of your family and child. It will be designed following the milestones all children go through as they learn to talk.

The sessions will usually take place on a weekly basis, always with the parent or caregiver participating. You as a parent or caregiver are the most valuable member of the team and have the greatest impact on your child’s development. During the sessions you will learn techniques and strategies that can be used to assist your child’s progress between visits.  You will be given ideas on how listening can be integrated into your daily activities and together we will choose games that can be played at home to achieve specific targets. All of the activities will focus on the way you naturally communicate with your child, such as encouraging eye contact, responding to your child’s smiles and sounds, and pointing out noises that commonly occur around you (ex. doorbell, telephone ringing).

Baby games to encourage your child to listen while having fun will be demonstrated. As your child gets older the activities will change to reflect his/her age and interests.

The primary goal will be to make certain that your child is progressing through the normal communication stages, as hearing children do. Most importantly this will be achieved using interesting and enjoyable activities. FUN is a key ingredient of all sessions!