I recently did an evaluation on a kiddo with hearing loss. Children with hearing loss are my love and my passion. I fell in love with them when I did my undergrad degree in deaf education and then got so much more knowledge when I worked along-side a therapist who had been working with deaf kids her entire career. Learning under her while I taught the deaf education preschool class was an AMAZING experience. Needless to say, I was so excited to conduct the evaluation and so hoped that I would get to see this little gem of a boy for therapy. Sadly, that latter did not happen. Therefore, I was searching for some great resources for his soon-to-be therapist. This week, I will blog about the great websites that I found!!
Today's website is a site that is a search engine for sounds!! This is great for kids who are working on listening comprehension, but it can be great for any kiddo! Remember that TVAK (Tactile, Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic) are all important when teaching a child. Therefore, if you are learning about zoo animals then you can: SEE them in pictures, FEEL different fur types in look-and-feel books, MOVE like them, and now you can HEAR them through this website. However, animals is only the tip of the iceburg. This website has: animals, birds, holidays, household, insects, mayhem, miscellaneous, nature, noisemakers, office, people, sports/recreation, tools, tv/vehicles, and movies.
This is great if you are working with a child who is simply working on auditory discrimination of environmental sounds. Simply print out pictures of the sounds you plan to play. Lay out 2-3 options (depending on his/her level), play the sound, and have him/her find the correct picture. If you are simply training a child to discriminate the environmental sounds, then show him/her a picture and play that sound several times. If your child's skills are more refined, then you can play a sound and have him/her name the sound.
The website is call "Find Sounds" and you can find it by clicking here.