The verbotonal method for management of young, hearing-impaired children.
The verbotonal method is effective for establishing good spoken language and listening skills. It is based on a developmental model of normal-hearing children, and emphasizes the importance of developing good rhythm, intonation and voice quality in hearing-impaired children. Specifically trained teachers/clinicians are combined with high quality amplification and vibrotactile input with System Universal Verbotonal Audition Guberina units. These units provide a wide frequency response with the option of modifying the frequency response through the cutoff frequency and slopes of filters to emphasize the optimal field of hearing of each hearing-impaired child. Through intensive intervention the rhythm and intonation patterns and the listening skills develop simultaneously. The goal is to integrate hearing-impaired children into regular educational and social situations. The integration rates are between 60 and 90%. The parents role is more supportive than therapeutic, and is designed to meet the needs and skills of each parent.
D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003131:Combined Modality Therapy; D003638:Deafness / Q000151:congenital* / Q000534:rehabilitation; D004519:Education, Special; D006801:Humans; D007804:Language Development; D010898:Pitch Perception; D013067:Speech Perception; D014110:Touch; D014732:Vibration; D014833:Voice Quality