This is an excellent blog, written by two Moms of kids with Cochlear Implants. They advocate for Auditory Verbal Therapy (AVT) and early implantation of Cochlear Implants. Two things I believe in strongly.
The blog references interesting articles on How Babies Process Langague and Baby Talk which reinforce the importance of early langague input.
Another recent early langague article with a twist is called Why Rich Parents Don't Matter. It speculates that:
When it came to the mental ability of 10-month-olds, the home environment was the key variable, across every socioeconomic class. But results for the 2-year-olds were dramatically different. In children from poorer households, the choices of parents still mattered. In fact, the researchers estimated that the home environment accounted for approximately 80% of the individual variance in mental ability among poor 2-year-olds. The effect of genetics was negligible.
The opposite pattern appeared in 2-year-olds from wealthy households. For these kids, genetics primarily determined performance, accounting for nearly 50% of all variation in mental ability. (The scientists made this conclusion based on the fact that identical twins performed much more similarly than fraternal twins.) The home environment was a distant second. For parents, the correlation appears to be clear: As wealth increases, the choices of adults play a much smaller role in determining the mental ability of their children.
In Nebraska, it is critical that we increase the number of certified AVT and AVEd (Auditory Oral) teachers, especially working in early intervention (birth to five). This should be a top policy priority. With advancements in technology, it is vitally important that we continue to develop these skilled AVT/AVED teachers and reinforce auditory communication teaching strategies at every level.
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