I’d like to start this review with a disclaimer – I don’t deliver speech and language therapy but am interested in how speech, language and communication are developing in the children we see with hearing loss within audiology. I found this a great book which clearly presented the issues experienced by a child with hearing loss. The content of the book is clear even to those with minimal, if any, speech and language knowledge.
The book begins with well-presented chapters on sound, speech acoustics and speech features. The chapters contain general tips, e.g. for assessment or therapy, suggest tools and references and finish with a ‘discussion questions’ section, which provides a helpful opportunity to recap the information provided in the chapter. There is a lovely ‘stages not ages’ section with further exploration of the stages of language development, including prelinguistic, single word, emerging combining words and the typical childlike errors stages. I really enjoyed how the strategies suggested to promote development were presented, including those directed to parents to support their child’s development. These were illustrated by examples in a very helpful style, including sample dialogues.
This is a book that doesn’t assume background knowledge on the part of the reader but, in a very approachable way, imparts knowledge with chapters that one can dip into as needed. This book is well worth buying and a joy to read.
