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Short Courses

The AG Bell Academy for Listening and Spoken Language conducted extensive research among educators and hearing health professionals to identify the core knowledge necessary for professionals to work with individuals living with hearing loss that seek a listening and spoken language outcome. This research culminated in the establishment of the Listening and Spoken Language Specialist Certification (LSLS Cert. AVEd and LSLS Cert. AVT) and is based on ”nine domains” of knowledge necessary for proficiency as an educator or therapist in listening and spoken language. Short Courses are intensive 3 1/2-hour workshops that reflect those domains. For your convenience, the relevant domain for each Short Course is indicated. Short Courses are $75 per session. For more information about the nine domains of listening and spoken language, visit the AG Bell Academy website at www.agbellacademy.org.

 

Convention program and schedule are tentative and subject to change.

Short Courses "Adults Aren't Just Big Babies" and "Lend Me Yor Ears: Auditory-Verbal Teaching Strategies" will have handouts distributed during the course onsite in Orlando.


Friday, June 25 from
8:00 – 11:30 a.m.


Adults Aren’t Just Big Babies: Guiding and Coaching Families in the Listening and Spoken Language Journey

  • Teresa Caraway, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, LSLS Cert. AVT, Hearts for Hearing

    Professionals who work with infants and young children are expected to have skills in child development and teaching strategies for little ones. But what about our responsibilities to guide and coach their parents, their teachers in the mainstream, or our colleagues as mentors? According to the AG Bell Academy for Listening and Spoken Language, a core competency for working with children and their families is engaging in effective parent guidance, education and support. We may know much about working with babies and young children – but those skills don’t automatically transfer to our work with their parents, caregivers and educators. This highly interactive session will utilize videotape excerpts and role-playing to equip participants with an understanding of adult learning styles across the generations and their impact on the various roles of a LSLS professional. LSLS professionals will gain practical insights and strategies ready to implement to promote higher learner involvement. Adults are not just big babies – they have specific styles in how they approach challenges and absorb new information – which dramatically impacts how we coach and guide families, and mentor colleagues.

    Instructional Level: Intermediate
    LSLS Domain: 5 – Parent Guidance, Education and Support


    Facilitating Auditory-Verbal Learning for Children with Impaired Executive Functioning

  • Ellen Rhoades, Ed. S., LSLS Cert. AVT, Auditory-Verbal Consultant

    Presentation slides/handouts will be distributed during the course.

    Participants will understand the rationale and supporting neurobiological evidence for auditory-based synchronous crossmodal rhythmic learning, and how to integrate these activities into an auditory-verbal program for young children (ages birth to 5 years) to improve executive functioning. Attendees will participate in activities and learn how to tailor those activities to meet the needs of children with learning challenges and those from diverse families. These interactive exercises serve to facilitate family-practitioner collaboration, children's executive functioning, and auditory-verbal learning. Activities can be implemented at home, in clinic settings and in classrooms.

    Instructional Level: Intermediate
    LSLS Domain: 4 – Child Development


    It's Not All About ABC's and 123's

  • Susan G. Allen, M.E.D., CED, M.Ed, CCC-SLP, LSLS Cert. AVEd, Clarke Jacksonville Auditory/Oral Center
  • Alisa Beard-Demico, M.S., CCC-SLP, LSLS Cert. AVT, Clarke Jacksonville Auditory/Oral Center
  • Cynthia Robinson, M.Ed., CED, LSLS Cert. AVEd, Clarke Jacksonville Auditory/Oral Center

    Download Handouts

    Clarke Jacksonville has evaluated many children with hearing loss and finds they know their ABC’s and 123’s but some are missing the essential building blocks required to develop functional, meaningful auditory perception and memory skills and intelligible speech and language. The focus of this short course will be on integrating assessment with intervention and transitioning into the mainstream. Presenters will consider developmental, remedial approaches and children with additional challenges. Presenters will address interpretation of test results, recognition and assessment of “red flags” that could impact or impede a child’s progress, and strategies for taking all those evaluations and developing an effective education plan. They will use interactive examples of practical intervention strategies to remediate the challenges identified. Integration of the treatment plan into the educational setting through collaboration with all professionals involved with the child will be discussed. Finally presenters will evaluate the appropriate timing for transition to the mainstream and plan the support services needed for the child to learn successfully alongside hearing peers.

    Instructional Level: Intermediate
    LSLS Domain: 4 – Child Development


    Ladder to Literacy: A Six-Step Process

  • Susan Rampp-Niette, M.C.D., CCC-SLP, Cambium Learning Solutions

    Download Handouts

    This six-step process provides a combined approach of auditory-verbal and Orton-Gillingham strategies to guide participants through a systematic and sequentially designed process using various tools and strategies that teach the basic foundational skills to literacy. These tools and strategies focus specifically on language embedded in academic text. Using a multi-sensory approach, techniques and activities will be taught for sound awareness and manipulation in words, spelling and word recognition, morphology, vocabulary and word knowledge, syntax, and grammar usage. This approach develops and practices the steps through a daily lesson up the ladder to literacy. Focus will then shift to using these foundational literacy skills to build reading and listening comprehension, as well as develop oral language and written skills necessary for success with academic text.

    Instructional Level: Intermediate
    Domain: 9 – Emergent Literacy


    No Hablo Inglés....Now What? Supporting Bilingualism in Homes

  • Angela Stokes, M.S.Ed., John Tracy Clinic
  • Betty Sackett, M.S.Ed., LSLS Cert. AVT, John Tracy Clinic
  • Jill Muhs, M.S.Ed., John Tracy Clinic
  • Mary Steinwinter, M.A.Ed., LSLS Cert. AVT, John Tracy Clinic
  • Jessica Dimaio, M.S.Ed., John Tracy Clinic

    Download Handouts Immigrant families who do not speak fluent English and/or use a language other than English in the home, are at high risk for not attaining basic educational and occupational goals in the United States. Cultural and linguistic barriers may subject children who are deaf or hard of hearing to delayed diagnosis and delayed access to assistive listening devices and educational intervention, impeding their progress toward speech, social development and eventual mainstreaming. Hope lies in creating a parent-centered Family Language Plan that encourages bicultural and bilingual development, enabling these children to acquire the ability to comfortably and naturally speak fluently in two or more languages at a young age. The presenters will share study outcomes from an initiative conducted at John Tracy Clinic beginning in fall of 2005. Assessment tools used, variables and rate of progress, parent and staff perspectives, teaching strategies, and program design will be shared and discussed with participants.

    Instructional Level: Intermediate
    LSLS Domain: 4 – Child Development


    (Re)Habilitation for Teens and Tweens Post Cochlear Implantation

  • Donna Sorkin, M.A., Cochlear Americas
  • MaryKay Therres, M.S., CCC-SLP, LSLS Cert. AVT, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

    Download Handouts

    Children ages 10 to 19, referred to as tweens and teens, comprise an increasingly important segment of the cochlear implant population. Yet the therapy process for tweens and teens is not well defined and this older pediatric demographic presents special challenges. As children enter the teen years, extracurricular and school activities become important and time-consuming and may preclude traditional therapy used for younger children. Presenters will demonstrate specific tools that can be used in rehabilitation. Case studies will provide the audience with opportunities to determine levels of skills and identify appropriate goals and activities to develop auditory and life skills.

    Instructional Level: Intermediate
    LSLS Domain: 2 – Auditory Functioning



    Friday, June 25 from 1:00 - 4:30 p.m.



    Bilateral Cochlear Implants: CI Team Perspectives

  • Donald Goldberg, Ph.D., LSLS Cert. AVT, Cleveland Clinic
  • Peter Weber, M.D., Cleveland Clinic
  • Rachel Bibler, Au.D., Cleveland Clinic
  • Holly Yeo, B.A., Cleveland Clinic

    Download Handouts

    This short course will present comprehensive details from the Cleveland Clinic’s Hearing Implant Program (HIP) Cochlear Implant (CI) Team, with specific emphasis related to bilateral cochlear implants (both simultaneous and sequential) from the surgical/otologic, audiologic, speech-language pathology/communication perspectives. Major foci will include the following: the bilateral CI candidacy process; surgical details; audiologic and CI programming/MAPping observations; and assessment recommendations and intervention or treatment ideas regarding auditory based therapy for bilateral CI recipients. The HIP Team currently serves approximately 150 bilateral CI recipients, twothirds of whom are children. Insights from three disciplines represented on our team will be shared via lecture; videotape samples; and a panel of pediatric CI recipients, their parents, and adult bilateral CI recipients from Cleveland Clinic’s program.

    Instructional Level: Intermediate
    LSLS Domain: 1 – Hearing and Hearing Technology


    Music & Language & Ears, Oh, My!

  • Amy McConkey Robbins, M.S., CCC-SLP, Communication Consulting Services
  • Christine Barton, MM, MT-BC, Central Canal Creative Arts Therapies

    Download Handouts

    This session will teach participants specific techniques for integrating music into the habilitation process of young children with hearing loss. Although the value of music for children with hearing loss is not a new concept, it was historically viewed by many as a skill separate from spoken language development. Our approach, in contrast, seamlessly weaves music and language together in the therapy session. Daniel Ling once said, "When music and song are not made available to them, the experience of children who are deaf or hard of hearing is unnecessarily restricted" (2003, p. xvii.) It is our aim to prevent this from occurring. This course will be part didactic, part experiential, part work and many parts fun! Video clips of the techniques developed by the presenters will be shared throughout the presentation. Individual and small group opportunities will enable development and sharing of creative ideas.

    Instructional Level: Intermediate
    LSLS Domain: 2 – Auditory Functioning




    Monday, June 28 from
    8:00 – 11:30 a.m.


    Lend Me Your Ears: Auditory-Verbal Teaching Strategies

  • Teresa Caraway, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, LSLS Cert. AVT, Hearts for Hearing
  • Joanna Smith, M.S., CCC-SLP, LSLS Cert. AVT, Hearts for Hearing

    This presentation will equip participants with practical auditory-verbal teaching strategies and techniques to maximize a child’s auditory potential from the detection level in the auditory skill hierarchy to the conversational level for children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Videotape segments will be utilized to demonstrate auditory-verbal teaching strategies and techniques targeting various auditory skill levels to facilitate development of exceptional conversational abilities. Ideas for targeting critical thinking and verbal reasoning skills including the ability to problem solve, infer, and predict will be discussed in this interactive seminar. Suggestions for coaching and guiding family members to become the primary language model will be shared. Participants will gain practical information to facilitate spoken language development through listening in a developmental hierarchy so that children with hearing loss can “lend me an ear” and become engaging conversationalists.

    Instructional Level: Intermediate
    LSLS Domain: 6 – Strategies for LSLS Development


    "LSL" Up Your Lesson!

  • Sandra Ibarra, M.Ed, LSLS Cert. AVEd, Sunshine Cottage for Deaf Children
  • Rebecca Schmitt, M.A., LSLS Cert. AVEd, Sunshine Cottage for Deaf Children
  • Danielle Paquin, M.Ed, LSLS Cert. AVEd, Sunshine Cottage for Deaf Children

    Download Handout This comprehensive program will offer teachers, speech language pathologists, itinerants and other professionals working with children who are deaf and hard of hearing effective strategies that prepare the school age child for academic success in a listening and spoken language environment. With current trends in education, it is essential for educators of children with hearing loss and other educational needs to create opportunities intended to maximize each individual child’s learning potential. Historically, educators of the deaf have struggled with the balance between academic demands and listening and spoken language. Our state board of education tells us we have to attack the academic skills. Our training tells us we set the foundation for listening and spoken language. Participants will learn how to bring these two practices together using a purposeful planning mindset within a listening and spoken language environment.

    Instructional Level: Intermediate
    LSLS Domain: 8 – Education


    Supporting Optimal Listening and Learning in Everyday Classrooms

  • Julie Steele, M.A., LSLS Cert. AVEd, Lapeer County Intermediate School District
  • Kate Salathiel, Au.D., F-AAA, Lapeer County Intermediate School District

    Download Handouts

    The task of supporting students with hearing loss in the mainstream comes with many challenges. These students are learning in everyday classrooms and require optimal listening environments in order to meet grade level expectations. This short course will provide: an understanding of the rules and regulations of IDEA that pertain to children with hearing loss, and how to use this information to advocate for optimal listening and learning in a student’s least restrictive environment; an introduction to several tools used to measure access to auditory information in the classroom; and a working knowledge of educational teams and how a customer service approach can aid in administrator and school staff understanding and followthrough to meet the needs of students with hearing loss. The importance of student and family involvement, selfadvocacy and transition services as they relate to school services will also be emphasized throughout this short course.

    Instructional Level: Intermediate
    LSLS Domain 6 – Strategies for LSLS Development


     

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