How do we Hear?aEarly Intervention-cum-Preschool Training Program
What happens during early intervention-cum-preschool – its timeline

Early Childhood Special Educators train, teach, and guide

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Process of training the baby to hear, develop comprehension and ultimately speak
– Specially trained early childhood educator helps child and guides parents.
– School adopts the scientific methodology of Auditory Oral Therapy and/or Auditory Verbal Therapy.
PARENT-INFANT PROGRAM
Takes place in the first year. The child gets training in exclusive one-to-one sessions of one hour every day and the parent is also trained on how to work outside the school hours.
As the parents become partners with teachers in training the child, the development of the child is significantly better than what is achieved using only Therapy (AOT/AVT).
Every activity in daily life is used for talking to the baby to give all language that was missed till fitting of a sensory device.
PRE-SCHOOL PERIOD
In the second year, child normally progresses to pre-school.
It is of 5 – 6 hours session every day.
The student-teacher ratio is 4 : 1.
Parents are also guided from time to time in developing the child and works in close association with school.
Child is benchmarked against a normal hearing child of same age to assess development.

Duration of Training Matters!
Duration of the whole program makes a huge difference as it consists of one year of early intervention or parent-infant program followed by a 3-4 year pre-school period. The initial 1 year Parent-Infant program is also similar to the AVT that comes as a package along with Cochlear Implant.
But in addition to the 1 year Parent-Infant Program, the child also gets an additional 3-4 years training in the Pre-School Program, depending on the age at which the child got the hearing device. This period of 3-4 years allows comprehensive training of the baby.
Integration into mainstream after completion of training
The goal of the training program is the all round development with spoken language and to prepare the child for joining a regular primary school in 1st or 2nd standard.
In the regular school, child learns along with typical hearing peers and gets socially integrated into mainstream society.