Auditory Skill Development

The first stage of listening is detection. This is being able to hear that a sound is present and also know when the sound is absent.

This stage is important for audiologists so they can see what a child is hearing or not hearing to assist in programming hearing technology.

There are many different things we can do at home to help support this stage (see Flipping Book).

Discrimination is knowing the difference between sounds.

An example of discrimination is hearing Spanish and English and knowing the two languages are different- even when you can’t understand what they are saying.

Hearing the differences in sounds is the next step to understanding their meanings.

This Flipping Book shares some ways that you can work on discrimination at home.

Identification is finding and labeling what you are hearing. This could be hearing another language and hearing a word that you are familiar with in the middle of the sentence.

Identification is easier when there is familiarity, fewer objects in a set, and the sounds are very different.

It's important to give a child the opportunity to find an object as well as to have a chance to give the label to you (and you find it). We want

This Flipping Book shares some ways that you can work on identification at home.