Auditory Verbal UK (AVUK) has published our 2020 Position Paper which gives an overview of the most recent international evidence base for the Auditory Verbal approach.

This position paper uses the latest international research to outline the current landscape of the Auditory Verbal approach and paediatric deafness. It includes how social policy, hearing technology and early interventions have advanced; raising the potential for deaf children to learn to listen and speak alongside their hearing peers.

It also explores the global picture of Auditory Verbal therapy and what more we can be doing to make this intervention accessible to families across the UK.

Throughout the global pandemic AVUK has continued to support the deaf babies, children and their families on the programme building on the work and investment in digital sessions, a need identified before lockdown. All sessions were moved online in March 2020.

The report includes research conducted by AVUK after five months of lockdown in the UK, which showed that 78 per cent of parents who had opted to continue with their Auditory Verbal sessions via telepractice through the global pandemic, indicated that they felt that their child was making good progress with support from their telepractice sessions. At least four out of five families expressed a strong preference for continuing telepractice sessions either entirely or in combination with in-centre appointments in future.

Sarah Hogan, Senior Auditory Verbal therapist and Research Co-ordinator at Auditory Verbal UK, has said of the launch:

We are now twenty years in to our 21st century. Our 2020 Position Paper details the improving outcomes for children with hearing loss whose families follow the Auditory Verbal approach.  The Auditory Verbal approach is used widely across the globe with easy access for families in some countries and with government funding for this early intervention in other countries. Our Position Paper brings together the new areas of focus in Auditory Verbal intervention and highlights research from the growing evidence base for the effectiveness of this early intervention programme. It is a call to Government to provide funding for the training of AV therapists and to enable all families easy and equitable access to AV practitioners. Now we’re looking forward with even greater optimism for our children and their families in 2021!

Download the Position Paper

If you have any questions about our research, please get in touch with our Senior Auditory Verbal therapist and Research Co-ordinator, Sarah Hogan, on [email protected]