The Sound Steps Podcast

Quiet spaces provide the deaf or hard of hearing child with the clearest listening opportunities. These are moments where the speech signal is received without competing noise.  This nineteenth episode, draws on Shefali Shah’s in-person practice and follows through on a father’s insight, that: “In order for a child to talk clearly, she must hear clearly.” However, life is noisy. School settings, p...

In this essential eighteenth episode, Shefali Shah takes us on an auditory journey, sharing authentic sound bites from her own AVT practice. We listen in as infants and toddlers progress through the natural stages of pre-speech: from early vocal play, to babbling,  jargon, imitation and first words as they thrive in environments that support their listening, learning and talking. The episode offer...

Self-monitoring is the invisible skill that allows children to reflect, adapt, and regulate, so as to learn independently and grow. In this seventeenth episode, Shefali Shah demonstrates with three-and-a-half and four year old deaf children  how Auditory-Verbal Therapy systematically fosters the ability to self-monitor speech intelligibility and language usage. As listening becomes deeply internal...

Your six month old infant is ready to be read to! In this delightful sixteenth episode, Shefali Shah is joined by Simi Rughani and Rashi Sanghi to experience the joy of reading aloud to their toddler. Follow Shefali’s practical guidance on how to choose developmentally appropriate books, to harness your child’s wholehearted participation. Books open up new worlds. The research shows that early rea...

Play offers children a safe and imaginative space to explore, express emotions, experiment, and fail, all without consequence. It is the perfect stage on which your deaf or hard of hearing child can practice talking, thinking, problem-solving and learning. In this fifteenth episode, Shefali Shah shares a delightful conversation with a young couple from her online AVT practice: parents of a cochlea...

The uphill climb of the early days is now behind you. As new vistas open up, you’ll find that  the gradient has eased and the pace of your child’s learning has gained considerable momentum. As comforting as it may be to linger in the familiar, growth thrives in novelty. By balancing observation with intuition, you can stretch and challenge your deaf or hard of hearing child without overwhelming he...

Progress is at the heart of effective early intervention.  The only way to determine whether a child is progressing is to measure development objectively: with data. Auditory-Verbal Therapy recommends administering internationally standardised assessments annually, to quantify developmental progress and track age-equivalent performance in children who are deaf or hard of hearing. In this thirteent...

Do you worry that your deaf or hard of hearing child is not talking as yet or that she is not talking enough? Listen to this episode: My deaf child isn’t talking which directly addresses your concerns and guides you through them. Shefali Shah's conversation with Sheena Kurian in this twelfth episode, guides listeners through the natural developmental sequence of language acquisition, emphasising t...

Not understanding is not a calamity! In this eleventh episode: Does my deaf child understand?, Shefali Shah in conversation with families in her in-person therapy sessions in the UK and India, guides them to offer simple, clear explanations to their child for information they did not understand, without asking test questions, interrupting or simplifying content. These break the flow of interaction...

Meaningful content engages children. They stay attentive. Variety in our use of vocabulary and language forms, builds deeper and more extensive learning pathways.  In this tenth episode, Generalisation: Following up on targets in Auditory-Verbal Therapy, Shefali Shah and Rashi Sanghi bring this concept to life with real-world examples. Their conversation shows how frequency and variety are essenti...

Focussing on your deaf or hard of hearing child’s hearing loss, can skew parenting. If you find yourself in this situation, listen to this episode to learn how, why and what to do about it. Consistency brings structure and order to a child’s day. With order comes predictability and with predictability comes a sense of security and confidence, especially for a deaf or hard of hearing child. In this...

Welcome to The Sound Steps Podcast: Conversations in Auditory-Verbal Therapy - exploring the transformative power of listening to develop fluent spoken language, conversational competence, clear speech, and age-appropriate development in children who are deaf or hard of hearing, one sound step at a time. Language carries meaning when it fulfils a child’s need to connect, to talk, to communicate a...

Welcome to The Sound Steps Podcast: Conversations in Auditory-Verbal Therapy - exploring the transformative power of listening to develop fluent spoken language, conversational competence, clear speech, and age-appropriate development in children who are deaf or hard of hearing, one sound step at a time. Communication is more than an exchange: it is a relationship. In Auditory-Verbal Therapy, this...

Welcome to The Sound Steps Podcast: Conversations in Auditory-Verbal Therapy , exploring fluent spoken language development, conversational competence, clear speech, and age-appropriate development, in children who are deaf or hard of hearing, through the transformative power of listening and parent-centred Auditory-Verbal Therapy, one sound step at a time Conversation is at the heart of human con...

Welcome to The Sound Steps Podcast: Conversations in Auditory-Verbal Therapy , exploring fluent spoken language, conversational competence, clear speech, and age-appropriate development, in children who are deaf or hard of hearing, through the transformative power of listening and parent-centred Auditory-Verbal Therapy, one sound step at a time. In Episode 5, Shefali Shah and Warren Estabrooks sha...

Welcome to The Sound Steps Podcast: Conversations in Auditory-Verbal Therapy , exploring fluent spoken language development, conversational competence, clear speech, and age-appropriate development, in children who are deaf or hard of hearing, through the transformative power of listening and parent-centred Auditory-Verbal Therapy, one sound step at a time. In this fourth episode, Shefali Shah inv...

Welcome to The Sound Steps Podcast: Conversations in Auditory-Verbal Therapy , exploring fluent spoken language development, conversational competence, clear speech, and age-appropriate development, in children who are deaf or hard of hearing, through the transformative power of listening and parent-centred Auditory-Verbal Therapy, one sound step at a time In this third episode, Shefali Shah is jo...

Welcome to The Sound Steps Podcast:Conversations in Auditory-Verbal Therapy ,  exploring fluent spoken language development, conversational competence, clear speech, and age-appropriate development, in children who are deaf or hard of hearing, through the transformative power of listening and parent-centred Auditory-Verbal Therapy, one sound step at a time In this second episode, Shefali Shah is j...

Welcome to The Sound Steps Podcast: Conversations in Auditory-Verbal Therapy , exploring fluent spoken language development, conversational competence, clear speech, and age-appropriate development, in children who are deaf or hard of hearing, through the transformative power of listening and parent-centred Auditory-Verbal Therapy, one sound step at a time. Your perfect world has just been upended...

PREVIEW Coming 1 October 2025… What if you could hear, in real time, how a child who is deaf or hard of hearing learns to listen, talk, and thrive? I’m Shefali Shah, LSLS Cert. AVT®, and this is The Sound Steps Podcast: Conversations in Auditory-Verbal Therapy. Together, we’ll explore how families use Auditory-Verbal Therapy (AVT) to support children with hearing loss in developing spoken language...