EVDC

     

The objective of this lesson is to teach your child to

a) respond to sounds throughout the day
b) attach meaning to the sounds he hears as a part of day-to-day life

1. As pointed out in the previous lesson, children respond to changes in the environment more than just the sounds themselves. So make sure you alternate silence and sound. This makes it easier for your child to pay attention to the sound.

2. Always draw the child's attention to the sound in a meaningful context when you are going about your daily routine activities

3. Always say the sound, point to your ear and use "Listen!" to let the child know he needs to listen for something. In the beginning you will need to be very close to the source of the sound.

This is an unstructured activity that you will incorporate into your daily life.

1. Pick five sounds in your day that occur naturally when you are involved in your daily routine. For example, a door knock, the telephone ring, the microwave beep, car horn or any other sounds in your environment.

2. Initially, set up the activity. Let's take the doorknock example

a) Have a familiar person hide behind a door with the child watching. Then turn around with the child and make sure he doesn't look at the door.
b) Wait expectantly while pointing to your ear and saying ‘listen’.
c) Ask the person on the other side to knock on the door. Express great excitement while saying ‘I hear that. There’s someone at the door’. Then open the door and say ‘hi _____ ‘
d) Repeat the exercise 2 or 3 times
e) Then you and your child go to the other side of the door and knock.

3. Repeat this procedure for all the five sounds. The only difference will be that when you hear the sound, you will use the appropriate language. For example, with the microwave beep you might say " I heard the microwave. Your milk is hot now!" or for the telephone " I heard the telephone. Maybe its daddy!" and so on.

4. After setting up these activities throughout your day, begin drawing your child's attention to these sounds when they occur naturally.

5. Once you've begun to practice listening for these five sounds throughout your day, make sure to draw your child's attention to at least 5 new sounds that occur naturally every week.

No video clip for this lesson.

For infants and babies ( under 9 months of age) you will need to build anticipation for the sound by associating it with an important activity for the baby such as feeding or changing a diaper. The sounds you use can be non-verbal speech sounds that signal a specific event such as Phew!! when a diaper needs to be changed, or environmental sounds such as a spoon banging on a bowl to indicate that it is time to eat. Always talk about the sound, e.g., "I heard the bowl and spoon. Mmmm! It's time to eat!".

When you are comfortable with drawing your child's attention to sounds throughout the day, move on to Lesson 104. Continue to do the activities from Lessons 101, 102, and 103.